Enchanted: Erotic Bedtime Stories For Women. Nancy Madore

varied lengths and widths.

      As she stared at these objects in horror, Bluebeard’s wife suddenly recalled the many rumors she had heard about her husband’s previous wives, all of which were presumed dead. Suddenly it occurred to her that he must have killed them in this very room, for, to her inexperienced eyes, the objects she saw there could serve no other purpose.

      But there was no more time to deliberate over the matter for, at that very moment, the match she was holding burned down to her fingers and with a little shriek, the terrified lady dropped the match and the ring of keys onto the floor. Trembling violently, she felt around in the dark for the keys and, finding them at last, she rushed from the forbidden room, fled down the winding corridor, and slipped into the first open doorway she could find. She collapsed into a nearby chair.

      Very slowly the horrified lady began to regain her composure. She assured herself that her husband could not know that she had entered the room—for she had touched nothing. Considering this, she glanced at the key ring and gasped. Was it her imagination, or had the little key to the forbidden room changed? Yes, it had turned bright red!

      This discovery started her heart racing anew, and in desperation she took a section of her petticoat and rubbed the key vigorously, but no matter what she did the red would not come off the key. At length she perceived that it was a charmed key, and if her husband discovered it he would indeed find out that she had disobeyed him. But then she reasoned, “If I take the key off the ring perhaps Bluebeard will believe it has been lost.”

      As she considered this, a dark shadow fell over her and she looked up to find no other than Bluebeard standing before her. She flung the keys behind her and desperately tried to appear happy to see him, but he could see by her face, which was paler than death, that she had entered the forbidden room.

      Bluebeard did not accuse his wife immediately, however. Instead, he spoke to her very pleasantly, telling her how, just as he was nearing town, he had come upon a messenger riding in to tell him that the business had been concluded satisfactorily after all, so that he could forfeit his trip. All this he explained in a very leisurely manner, though what it was exactly that he said his poor wife could never have told you, so preoccupied was her traumatized mind.

      But at last Bluebeard came to the point and asked his wife very politely for the ring of keys. As you might well imagine, that lady did everything she could think of to delay, but her husband would not be put off, and at length she handed him the keys.

      Bluebeard examined the keys carefully and then said to his wife, “Why has the key which I forbade you to use turned red?”

      At this his wife burst into tears and confessed all, begging her husband to forgive her. But Bluebeard grabbed her fiercely, dragging her along as he strode purposefully toward the small room at the end of the corridor, saying, “Now you will meet your fate in that room!”

      The poor woman beseeched her husband for mercy with tears streaming down her lovely face, so that even the hardest of hearts would have softened, but Bluebeard turned his face away from her and, quickly unlocking the door, forced his struggling wife into the forbidden room just before stepping into it himself. Then he locked the door behind them.

      Bluebeard’s wife was suddenly silent, as she stood in the dark room and waited. Without the slightest difficulty or fumbling, Bluebeard quickly lit a lantern and set it on a stand near the table with the shackles. Then he approached his wife.

      She held her breath in absolute terror as Bluebeard lifted his hand to her face in a gentle caress before placing his hands lower, upon her neck, and carefully reaching under the lace collar of her dress. She shut her eyes tightly, thinking he would strangle her in the next moment. And remarkably, something within her was stirred to life by her husband’s touch. She loved him yet!

      All at once there was a great tear and her dress came apart, falling away from her in strips. Next went her underclothes and, before her dazed eyes had time to become fully adjusted to the dim light, she found herself standing before her husband without a stitch of clothing on her quivering flesh. She felt fresh tears rushing to her eyes as she remembered how tenderly he had held her only hours before. That he could kill her thus (for that is what she believed he was about to do) left her heartbroken.

      Bluebeard led his wife to the rope that she had wondered about only moments before. Very deftly he attached her wrists to the manacle at the center, adjusting it so that her arms were stretched high above her head. Next he fastened her feet to the shackles on the floor, which were set just far enough apart to make it awkward for her to stand. Too horrified to speak, she stood stretched apart, mute and trembling.

      Having confined her thus, Bluebeard approached the wall where the various strips of leather hung. As she watched her husband thoughtfully examine them, it suddenly dawned on her what those leather strips were and how her husband would use them on her. With this comprehension came the awareness that her life was not in danger, but she was too alarmed by the unspecified horrors that were still imminent to feel relief over this. She began to struggle against her bindings as she watched him select a thick black whip.

      Bluebeard turned back toward his wife, saying, “Because of my great love for you, I shall be merciful. You will receive only thirty lashes.”

      After a second of shocked silence, Bluebeard’s wife began again, in earnest, to plead for mercy. This he ignored, continuing in the same calm, matter-of-fact tone, only slightly louder to supersede her cries. “You will count the lashes as I give them to you. If you miss a single count, we will start again at the beginning. Also, you must accept the lashes willingly, acknowledging that you deserve them. You may cry out, but you must not protest or I will begin the lashes again.”

      Immediately after this frightful speech Bluebeard sent the whip flying brutally across his wife’s backside for the first time. She cried out, and fresh tears blinded her vision.

      “We will begin again,” was Bluebeard’s cruel reply, and again the lash stung his wife’s flesh. This time she called out, “One!”

      A moment later another sting from the lash came and she heard herself cry, “Two!” Shock and horror mingled with her shame, and yet, with the next sting of the whip she managed to cry, “Three!”

      Bluebeard continued this barrage, and his wife obediently called out the corresponding number to each and every painful sting. Periodically Bluebeard would stop to ask her, “How many more lashes do you wish, my love?” or “Tell me, how many more lashes should I give thee?” to which she was compelled to answer with the full amount due to complete the required thirty lashes. Somehow she managed to do all this, though her skin shone bright red and burned with a white, hot heat, long before her thirty lashes were up.

      When at last she had endured all thirty lashes, her husband approached her and gently kissed her face and lips. Although she now knew that her husband was not going to kill her, she still wondered uneasily what more lay in store for her. And yet, she found herself responding to her husband’s kisses, partly from relief and partly from a new, curious and incomprehensible need that was growing within her. She began uttering soft words of apology and love. But Bluebeard drew his lips away from hers, chiding her softly, “A loving wife does not take what is not given freely from her husband.”

      Bluebeard carefully unfastened his wife’s hands and feet and, lifting her into his arms, carried her over to the table with the shackles. He placed her gently on the table, adjusting her body so that she was positioned on her hands and knees, with her legs spread wide apart. Her wrists and ankles were quickly and adeptly fastened to the table. Then Bluebeard gently forced her head down onto the table and placed a clasp of sorts around her neck to hold it in place. She was deeply humiliated and agitated to be bound thus, for in this position her most private parts were especially laid open and visible. With horror she realized that her husband had walked to that end of the table and stood before her at that very moment, examining her.

      She felt his warm breath on her flesh as he approached nearer, and then something soft and wet touched her exposed area. It took her a moment to realize that it was his tongue, and she moaned with a mixture of pleasure and apprehension. With precision and determination he continued relentlessly,