Bluebeard

Tintagel stood glaring down at him. "You call me a mercenary!" he cried. "But I am no mercenary. You slew my own sister in just such a manner as those yonder, slaughtered in the most terrible manner that can be conceived! Slain by you, monster count! How many other innocents have died by your hand? Five wives have you had. This I know, and none of them ever left these walls. God only knows how many others have fallen victim to your cruel depravity. May he have mercy on your wicked soul, but I doubt not that you shall surely burn in Hell as you well deserve! Now, prepare yourself to die!"

Bluebeard only laughed and rolled once more to his feet. His great bulk seemed to dwarf the slim warrior who stood defiantly before him. His black eyes blazed with a fierce and primitive hate. He had now lost all sem­blance of humanity. He had become a beast primordial, a creature of death incarnate.

As I watched in my drugged state, it seemed to me that I beheld a battle older than time itself, the beast versus the man. Bluebeard came on, slashing and stabbing like a madman. Tintagel agilely leapt back and almost casually lashed out with his own blade.

Bluebeard's left hand fell to the floor. He howled like a bear, clutch­ing the spurting stump of his arm. Blood drenched his silken robes.

Bluebeard's eyes were filled with terror now.

"I beg of you, do not slay me," he pleaded. "I have gold, silver, great power. I will pay you......."

"Aye, you will pay, great lord!" cried Tintagel. "You will pat in blood and you will pay in pain!"

Another thrust and Bluebeard fell with a great crash. His right leg had been nearly severed from his body at the thigh.

"You will die slowly and terribly, as you well deserve," stated Tin­tagel, strangely calm now. "Prepare yourself, monster, for what you have sown you shall now surely reap!"

Then he flayed Bluebeard alive, piece by piece. The quivering heap of gory flesh that remained must have died long before the deed was wholly done. I can only believe that it was for the best, for I could see that even Tintagel had at last sickened of the task of his vengeance.

I raced to my benefactor's side, embracing him and bruising his face with the fierceness of my breathless kisses.

"Calm yourself, my lady," said he, "The danger is past. You are safe now."

But I could not calm myself. The fires of lust that had been awakened by Bluebeard's drug still raged within me. I tore open my bodice, exposing my white breasts to his view. My hands clawed at him, grasping at the crotch of his breeches. I saw his eyes widen. I felt the bulk of his manly flesh beneath my frantic hands begin to lengthen and harden.

"Take me now, warrior," I gasped. "As is your right for freeing me from a fate too horrible to contemplate. Take me warrior, for I will love thee and no other!"

There's no need to relate what further took place in that

terrible chamber beside the bloody corpses of my former husband

and his victims. I blush even now to think of it, but I knew no

such shame or chagrin then, so overpowering was the lust that

was instilled by the potion I had been forced to imbibe. The

walls of the bloody chamber resounded again and again with my

gasps and incoherent cries as Tintagel brought me to my pleasure

so many times that I lost count.

Tintagel and I were wed soon thereafter. I have borne him many children since that day, and every year at the Midwinter Festival, I have told this tale, and no doubt I shall tell it again every year for as long as I still live. For I would not let the world forget that a monster such as Bluebeard once existed. And I have little doubt that others have existed and will exist again. It is well that we all should be wary, for there will always be

men who will prey upon women, and who is to say what dark and secret thoughts reside in the hearts of any man, even the man you call your own husband.

THE END