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thecrownnet · 4 years ago

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weekendmagsocial The Diana we’re desperate to meet. The return of The Crown [...]

*Spoilers Alert*

The Diana we’re desperate to meet. The return of The Crown will feature assassinations, avalanches and the tension between the Queen and Mrs T. But the most anticipated entrance has to be Diana’s. Today Weekend tells how they’ve captured her charisma

[...] The upcoming fourth season will take Diana from her early days as a shy kindergarten teaching assistant to a fairytale princess and an iconic global figure, as well as explore the early days of her disastrous marriage to Prince Charles.Her entrance comes when it returns to our screens in November or December, almost exactly 40 years after Nigel Dempster revealed in the Daily Mail in 1980 that Charles had found his ‘future bride’, having transferred his attention to Diana Spencer from her older sister Sarah.

Like Diana at the time, the actress playing her in The Crown is also a young unknown. Emma Corrin, 24, is a privately educated Cambridge graduate, who didn’t go to drama school.

By coincidence she’s originally from Sevenoaks in Kent, where Diana went to West Heath School from the age of 12 to 16.

Aware of how challenging the role would be for any actress, the producers started their search with a desperate call for ‘a mesmerising new young star with extraordinary range.’

The brief added, ominously: ‘She has to play charming comedy, flirt and social exhibitionist on the world stage, desperate and lonely self-harmer at her lowest ebb and the kind of psychological intensity of Mia Farrow in Rosemary’s Baby.’

It would obviously be helpful too if she resembled Diana, and in some of the new scenes, as the kindergarten teaching assistant, and wearing a pink polka-dot dress on her 1983 tour of Australia, the likeness is uncanny.

Emma’s co-star Josh O’Connor, who plays Prince Charles, agrees, saying it was ‘spooky’ how much of a ‘breathtaking spitting image’ of Diana she was.

But Emma says she has never been told she looks like Princess Diana before – although strangely her mother, who works as a speech therapist, has been! ‘I have never had that,’ she adds. ‘I get told I look like a young Jodie Foster.’

Emma spent more than two hours a day in the make-up chair to achieve the Diana look, accentuating her doe eyes, and with several wigs re-creating the journey from ingénue to one of the most stylish women in the world.

Amazingly, she was still working hard for her final exams at Cambridge when she went through the auditions for The Crown.

‘They actually offered me the part in person,’ she says of her last audition. ‘It felt like I’d just been proposed to; it was the best moment of my life. There’s a lot of pressure, but I’ve been glued to the show since the first episode and to think I’m now joining this incredibly talented acting family is just surreal.’

Peter Morgan, the creator, writer and producer of The Crown, has complete confidence in her. ‘Emma is a brilliant talent who immediately captivated us when she came in for the part.

'As well as having the innocence and beauty of a young Diana, she also has, in abundance, the range and complexity to portray an extraordinary woman who went from an anonymous teenager to the most iconic woman of her generation.’

Like all the cast in this heavily researched production, she was given a large bundle of written material and documentaries to watch, and she spent hours on perfecting the princess’s distinctive high voice with a vocal coach and learning how to re-create her particular habit of glancing up from under her fringe, as well as her graceful way of moving.

It’s not an impression, I’m going for essence - Emma Corrin, who plays Diana ‘Something they have been making clear from the start is that this is not an impression,’ says Emma.

‘I am going for essence. Any movement and voice work we have done has been figuring out why she talks the way she does, and how she was a massive departure from the Royal Family, a bit like Meghan is now I guess, by bringing something different in the way she talks.’

Season four brings back memories of naive young Diana, with a re-creation of that first photo, at the Pimlico nursery school where she worked, which showed her holding two of her charges while the sun shone through her skirt, revealing her shapely legs.

And it follows how she becomes hardened into a mature but troubled woman who is the toast of America.

The retelling of the royal romance starts with a traumatic event: the assassination of Charles’s beloved great uncle Lord Mountbatten (Charles Dance) who was killed, along with a grandson, a local boy and his son-in-law’s mother, by an IRA bomb hidden on his boat in Ireland in 1979.

Diana recalled how she’d watched Charles at the funeral on TV and when she saw him ten months later – the families were friends – she told him: ‘You must be so lonely? You know, it’s ghastly. You need someone beside you.’ He quickly decided he was in love.

Diana was turning 19 when she got together with Charles. He was 31. After 13 dates they were engaged. The rehearsal of their 1981 wedding at St Paul’s has been filmed in Winchester Cathedral with Emma wearing a replica of the blue floral dress Diana sported before the big day.

A later scene shows the joyful day when Diana, pregnant with Harry – with Emma sporting a fake baby bump – enjoyed an Easter Egg hunt at Buckingham Palace, chasing toddler William in the gardens.

The new episodes also focus on key moments – and key looks – from 1989, three years after Charles is thought to have resumed his affair with Camilla.

In one scene Emma is seen outside The Savoy hotel in London, re-creating Diana’s appearance at the Barnardo’s Champion Awards.

Emma wears a floral one-shoulder dress, reflecting one of Diana’s favourite silhouettes – a style which suited her immensely but which the Establishment is said to have hated, deeming it ‘not royal’.

Having played Charles so sensitively in season three, Josh O’Connor, 30, says the heir to the throne will be portrayed in a harsher light this time. ‘Well, it’s the Diana years,’ he says.

‘If series three was to make people feel empathy for him, I guess we’re going to pull the rug from under him. We all have a set position on the dynamic between Diana and Charles. It’s been great to have the ability to either fight against that or, at times, acknowledge it and to challenge any question of, “Did he ever love her?” Personally, I think he must have done.

'There’s a wealth of layers to Charles and Diana, and I have loved seeking that out.

'I think Diana wasn’t completely innocent – I’m talking fictionally, in our story – so there are ups and downs. There’s the difficulty with Camilla and the whole family, so it’s going to be, hopefully, an interesting arc.’

Josh says they all enjoyed delving into an era which is so crucial to the modern Royal Family. ‘Everything changed when Diana came onto the scene,’ he says.

‘I think she changed the game, and modernised them, and made them relevant again.’

Also returning are Emerald Fennell as Camilla and Erin Doherty as feisty Princess Anne.

The real Anne revealed recently that she’d watched early episodes of the show, which she found ‘quite interesting’.

Peter Morgan says, ‘So many people asked me, after she first appeared, to put more of her in there.

Anne’s often overlooked. But Erin’s portrayal means that everybody has fallen in love with her. I read that searches about her on Google went through the roof, she’s now one of the most popular royals.’

Prince Andrew’s romantic life is set to come under the spotlight too. His most famous affair was with actress Koo Stark, who is said to have threatened to sue producers if the portrayal of her is negative, while the period covered in this series also sees him marry Sarah Ferguson.

Meanwhile, Edward is seen growing up and going to university.

There was a rush to finish filming before lockdown was announced.

It meant one key scene of an avalanche had to be moved from the Pyrenees to Ben Nevis.

The incident is likely to be a re-creation of the fatal moments in 1988 when a skiing party including Charles was caught in an avalanche in Klosters.

Major Hugh Lindsay, a former equerry to the Queen, was killed and Charles was seen weeping as he was helicoptered off the slopes.

The bizarre affair when Michael Fagan broke into the Queen’s bedroom in Buckingham Palace in 1982 will also feature in this run, but the 1987 It’s A Royal Knockout embarrassment, when the lesser royals dressed in medieval garb to play games for charity, is mercifully absent.

Once this series is over, an older cast are preparing to take the lead roles, with Imelda Staunton as the Queen and Lesley Manville as Princess Margaret.

They are due to start filming next year, and die-hard fans will be cheered by Peter Morgan’s recent change of heart, when he announced in July that there will be a sixth series to come.

The Crown will return to Netflix later this year.

- Source: Daily Mail August 14, 2020

*It has just been announced that Jonathan Pryce will portray Prince Philip in season 5 and 6.

#josh o'connor #emma corrin #princess diana #the crown #the crown spoilers

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sassasquashedgrapes · 7 years ago

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Beauty's Entrapment, The Sleeping Beauty series

Hello there!

This is inspired by the 2011 Australian film, Sleeping Beauty starring Emily Browning with an Eyes Wide Shut Stanley Kubrick feel.

I wrote the draft of this story in about mid 2012, and it's a bit obvious I took in some of the characters from the British E4 Series, Made in Chelsea as part of my inspiration for the other supporting characters (hehe, was a huge fan of the show).

So anyway, initially, I had intended this to be a short story of sorts, but as I revisited this plotline, I'm not quite sure on whether to continue it, but I hope you like it.

Enjoy!

**Warning: NSFW for nudity, excessive alcohol & drug use, sex with underlying rape theme, and obscene language. Rated R-17.

* * * *

***

Beauty’s Entrapment

“I’m telling you, man. It’s the craziest fucking thing I’ve ever done,” Walt throws his head back and lets out a guffaw as we listen with piqued interest at a recollection he encountered two fortnights before.

“So, basically you just lie in bed next to a naked hot girl and not fuck her?” Oliver Patman rubs his well-manicured hand thoughtfully against his clean shaven chin and taps his index finger emphasizing on the words: DO. NOT. FUCK.THE.HOT.GIRL, his eyes dubious behind the huge horn-rimmed tortoise shell glasses.

He’s the only one who is dressed casually in an off-beat gray shirt with a huge cross with a pair of eyes on them and black Diesel pants.

The rest of us are in suits and have just agreed meet up for some after lunch drinks at one of the newest bars that opened in SoHo.

“Where’s the fun in that?” Spencer Stevens scoffs as he raises his half empty class of martini and points at it imperiously to the bartender to throw him another hit.

“You have to admit there’s something poignant about the thought of lying next to someone who’s vulnerable and all you can do is absolutely nothing,” Tom Belhaven murmurs.

“Sounds like you can relate with that,” Stevens is at his fourth round and eyes Tom with derisive viciousness, taking in the redhead’s wildly psychedelic patterned pink Missoni shirt that’s given me a migrane in the last hour. As I finish the remains of the Madeira, which I consume hastily because I’m tempted to order a Vodka or something stronger. I realize that it’s 2 in the afternoon and I have to meet Lyca as she’s been dying to look over apartments on the East Village.

“Knock it off, Stevens.” I cock an eyebrow and smirk at the pretentious bastard.

“He may be a virgin but at least he was never fat.”

“Oh, fuck. Must we reminisce?”

“What did you call it Spenny, your Adele phase?” Walt chuckled as Spencer purses his lips and grins unabashedly.

“I’m sorry, Belhaven.”

But Tom is miles away as he cranes his necks and loosens the powder blue bow-tie.

Five of us sit idly around the bar as Walt patiently answers each of our questions. I turn and order a J&B, deciding that Lyca isn’t probably going to care if I have alcohol on my breath when I kiss her. She’s been doing this new ballet pilates exercise and swears she’s going to look better than Natalie Portman circa Black Swan.

Plus with her busy doing PR for a new client dubbed to be the next Zac Efron, it wasn’t a surprise either that my so-called longtime girlfriend is fucking him on the side as a bonus.

Not that I care anyway. She’s already slept with Oliver and had been fucking Spencer behind my back for the past two years I’ve lost track.

Carrington Walters the Third, whom we fondly call Walt because he refuses to be given a moniker like the Third as it sounds similar to ‘turd’; has been my closest friend since our days at Eton.

I grew up with Spencer, Oliver, and was next door neighbors with Tom but because Walt was the descendant of a famous English cookie and my grandfather was the last Earl of Mondevale, it only seemed appropriate that we taint our American blood with our long forgotten British heritage.

I rub my eyes occasionally, fighting the urge to sleep.

I’ve been working seventy hours a week for the last few months now that I’ve made senior partner at Lyndon & Pryce. I am the youngest ever to achieve the honor and lately I’ve been slacking my ass off not giving a rat’s ass, blanking in and out during meetings and mergers.

I sit and listen to Walt talk animatedly waving his hands on the air like a music conductor as I take in deep swallows of the J&B.

Belhaven sits on the other end, not listening to a word, as he eyes the huge Jackson Pollock painting as if it were the most interesting thing on earth while to me it looked like something from an infant who just barfed on a white Egyptian cotton bed sheet.

Patman looks at his glass occasionally, contemplating if he should order another round but because he’s been on strict detox, he digresses.

Stevens listens amiably, but he’s been eyeing the pretty brunette from the far side of the table whose been giving me salacious looks since we arrived.

* * *

“I’m a friend of Carrington Walters,” I answer the elderly bird-like lady who is dressed like a gothic governess during the Victorian era who greets me at the door.

How I managed to even bother with Walt’s suggestion that I go here was a stroke of spontaneity.

I had done my duty going around looking for apartments with Lyca. She had opted instead that the East Village had been deemed as ‘unfit’ for her aura and is now looking towards us getting something near Fifth Street, which would still be considered miles away from her parents living in Park Avenue.

I assume this is because she’s afraid that someone would catch her bringing home her latest ‘pet’ while I was sitting on my ass in the office, sleeping it off after a round of codeine and alcohol.

Instead of coming home to my stark white apartment on the West Village, that was covered in at least three muted shades of gray and black with nothing but a gigantic authentic samurai armor for décor as the piece de resistance, I hailed a taxi and asked to be driven at the specified address Walt relayed earlier.

It was out of sheer luck that the driver was willing to drive me anywhere near Rhode Island, as I fished in a couple of hundred dollar bills telling him I’d make it worth his while.

I had gotten off work at 9 and thought, what the fuck, any party that Walt brings in has got to be fun.

Besides, I thought to myself; I earned it anyway.

I’m brought to a sprawling three story mansion near Rhode Island that reminds me of one owned by the Vanderbilts with the Neo-Victorian era slash Tudor designed architecture.

I could tell the place was far younger as the plastered walls still didn’t achieve that aged appearance. I take a good look inside and could tell by the vast display of dark Persian rugs that this house was merely more for show because it looked too ostentatious for anyone to live here.

The bird-like Governess ushers me into something that reminds me of a waiting room with antique black steel ornate chairs lined with plush red velvet that remind me of a Gothic Versailles.

Now as I recall those days I spent in Paris roaming around King Louis XIV’s chateau, it was indeed like the place but better suited for Bram Stoker’s Dracula and his Vampire Brides with its Baroque styled interior furnishing.

Blood. Sex & Rock and Roll.

I’m so enthralled that I barely notice the tall statuesque redhead who looks old enough to be my mother.

She’s expensively dressed in head to toe Chanel and is wearing Christian Louboutin pumps that may have been appropriate for a woman half her age, but because of her undeniably perfect legs she puts it off well enough.

Her strawberry blonde hair is neatly styled into a coif and her entire outfit reminds me of a Stepford Wife. H

er cold blue eyes meet my hazel browns and she looks at me from head to toe, giving me an appraisal that I’m not quite sure whether she approves or not. I cock my head to the side and wait for her to finish giving me her stare down. When she’s done with her inspection, I offer my hand and introduce myself. She responds by saying that her name is Evelyn Collins.

I get the feeling that she’s lying, but don’t comment on that either.

“I take it you have been briefed in by your friend on how we deal with our matters?” she inquires but it sounds more like a statement than a question.

I nod curtly.

“We have a moral code here that the girls are not to be penetrated under any circumstances and I am taking your word as a gentleman that you will stand by that rule.”

“Yes,” I answer contritely like an obedient prep school boy.

She looks again at me to judge my sincerity. Her piercing gaze narrows as she assesses me by taking in my features as if she were mentally calculating a difficult problem that needed to be solved immediately.

“You are not what I expected from Mr. Walters usual referrals.”

“Is it because I’m younger?” Based from Walt’s stories, this decadent discovery was a revered endorsement given by his 60 year old uncle who was not only rich as Midas but was an absolute lecher.

Walt had been introduced to the lifestyle as a means of finding new ideas on events planning at he’s been working as an events coordinator for one of New York’s bigger, more successful nightclubs.

This ranked as one of his monthly dalliances, the kind that to most would have been considered like trying a new restaurant or going to that latest spa for the heck of it.

From Walt’s endorsement at the bar earlier this afternoon, the rules were that the man could do anything to the heavily drugged women except engage in sexual intercourse, which was probably was something mostly old men who were dependent on Viagra could do without.

I heard of brothels during the Japanese Feudal era where men visited places such as these just for the pleasure of lying beside opium laden beautiful women just to watch them sleep.

As I recalled during my brief Japanese Literature class in Yale about a novel written by Yasunari Kawabata telling a tale of where rich men of a certain elderly age paid high amounts of money to visit a place where they could spend a night sleeping with beautiful young girls.

So it was no surprise that Evelyn Collins would readily assume this.

However, her next words take me by surprise.

“It’s because you’re attractive,” she says flatly.

I’m well over six feet in height, weigh 180 pounds of lean muscle, I exercise regularly and have been joining triathlons since I entered law school in Harvard. I had dark brown hair and piercing hazel brown eyes that complimented my tanned skin. I owe it my mother, whose Malaysian and Portuguese heritage added to the Eurasian mix had blended it well enough that I still managed to maintain the best of the Caucasian features, but with dark, bronze-skinned coloring that many of my friends envied.

Walt on the other hand, compared to me was less attractive standing at five foot seven inches with a shock of pale blond hair, an Irish boxer’s nose that often reminded me of a parrot, and had a tendency to turn beet red if he had too much sun exposure.

His uncle was a 300 pound version of my friend.

She then swiftly changes the topic and asks briefly about my background. I feel no shame and tell her about myself, what schools I’ve attended, that I’ve been living in Manhattan for most of my life except that time when my parents sent me off to Eton, my travels and other particulars.

She seems neither disapproving nor impressed and I get this feeling that she employs this method rather out of courtesy than curiosity.

I’m also more than certain that there have been more distinguished men who have like me gone through the same process, yet somehow I feel as if she’s also testing me: whether to see I am worthy to even be stuck in this presence.

After my ‘interview’, she pauses for a moment and I bite the urge of excusing myself and getting the fuck out of here as I feel as if I’ve overstepped my boundaries.

After what felt like a contemplation that took almost forever, Evelyn finally speaks.

“I’ve changed my mind about you. I won’t give you the usual treatment that Mr. Walters expects. Yours will be something….different, but special nonetheless.”

She adds as she lifts the white porcelain phone beside her and speaks in a low, soft voice in fluent French that I could barely comprehend the words she utters except for the distinct word ‘virgin girl’.

She hangs up and offers me a genteel smile and a nod signaling that I am to follow her to the next adjacent room.

She opens the paneled doors and ushers me inside a huge bedroom heavily draped in dark red curtains that cover the high paneled windows. She then nods and mutters goodnight to me, leaving me alone as I take in the full view of the room but instead of minding the décor, my eyes zero in on the woman sleeping underneath the covers of the huge bed that is centrally located in the room.

As I approach her, I am unmindful of the fact that the walls are heavily painted in deep shades of red with a high back chair that rests besides a huge king-sized four poster bed that’s decked with a heavy Oak wood headboard and decked with sheets that are matched in leathery brown hues and red giving it an aristocratic, yet highly masculine feel.

I stand beside the naked girl with burnished honey colored hair and pale lucent white skin that complements the bed as if she herself were included in the ornate decoration.

Just by looking at her I automatically know that she’s young, probably at least barely legal or at least 18 years of age. Which isn’t too young for a man of my age at 25 years, except that she had probably had men far older than myself.

I continue to stare as I watch her sleep, almost anticipating her to wake up, but her even breathing suggests that whatever Evelyn had given her had knocked her out cold.

I marvel how she really is a pretty fetching thing.

There was an innocent sexiness about her in that delicately angled face with russet colored thick eyelashes and delicately arched eyebrows that have been shaped to perfection; a light dusting across her pert straight nose and pink sensual lips that reminded me of those pretty ingénues starring on those teen dramas that my younger sister loved to watch.

She had the look right down to a pat. While myself, I preferred dark haired sophisticated, sensual women like Lyca, whose long straight chestnut hair and ebony eyes and tan skin on well toned curves were more befitting for a centerfold on Maxim’s.

However, I could care less about my girlfriend at the moment for there was something enthralling about the sleeping girl that as if she could hear me, I find myself easily conversing with her.

“Hi, my name is…” I drift in midsentence, realizing she could give a fuck what my name is and is probably dreaming of some prince charming who looked like me that would rescue her and get her out of here instead of being caressed by some geezer who’s old enough to be her grandfather.

I smile in wry amusement wondering how indeed she would react if she knew that instead of being stuck with a saggy assed lecher, she was to spend a night with me.

I’m finding this no-penetration rule thing a lot harder to abide by the minute.

So instead, I fish around my suit jacket and take out a pack of Dunhills. I shrug myself out of my jacket and toss it to the chair beside me and sit on the free side of the bed as I cross my long legs.

Due to the enormous size of the bed, I don’t feel the need to move her and move in closer that I’m on the opposite side, acting as a reluctant guardian as I lie on top of the covers while she’s underneath and almost with a slight hesitation, I turn towards her as if to ask permission to what I’m about to do.

“Do you mind? Of course you don’t.”

I light up the first cigarette and take a deep breath, inhaling the goodness of the nicotine adding up to my system already mixed with two tablets of Vicodine that I’ve downed with a shot of Remy Martin.

I’m relieved Evelyn barely noticed how bloodshot my eyes were when I had first arrived at the mansion as I again turn to take a look at my lovely bed partner whose deep breathing was in sync that her mouth exhaled in a delicately sweet sigh that sounded incredibly erotic for something so menial.

For the first time, in what I may have considered may have been far longer than I could ever recall, here was a female who was unaware of my presence.

She appears oblivious to the man smoking beside her as she continues with her current comatose state, unmindful of the smoke emanating my hands.

I had been used to countless of women giving me fascinated looks, or wondering if I was the devil incarnate like how Evelyn had done earlier.

I’m also accustomed to being talked to incessantly to by women like Lyca, who could just never seem to be content on whether to fire her current facialist who does home services or take advantage of her friend’s newly opened spa, but thinks that she isn’t ready to trust herself especially with the Vietnamese as she feels like one of them might do a Viet Cong on her face that might scare off her new tricolored Cavalier King Charles Spaniel puppy, Alex who is said to be of the same litter as the dog belonging to Kate Middleton.

In fact, for the longest time that I could ever recall, this is the first time I felt that a woman is completely oblivious to my presence.

I’m not sure if it’s because of the drug interaction to my system that’s done me in or just out of pure ennui that I begin having a one sided conversation with the woman sleeping beside me.

I think of a mundane to talk about to initially amuse me, since there really wasn’t much to do. I wasn’t sleepy either in spite of my inebriated drugged state, so I talk about my day at work, about my relationship with Lyca and how I wasn’t sure if I wanted to really marry her because her father had just made me senior partner at his firm and somehow expected that out of me.

I tell her about my mother which was rarely something I did because I haven’t spoken about her since the day she walked out of my life and divorced my father for plastic surgeon from Brazil who turned out to have a fake license and is now being sued heavily for malpractice.

I then turned the conversation about my boyhood and Walt and how I had come around to finding this place.

Then finally I describe to her my father, my older brother and little sister whom I haven’t spoken to in a year because I just ‘didn’t feel like talking’ to them. I realize that after what seemed like a soliloquy that had drained me out completely, added to the fact that I had just run out of cigarettes and that dawn was close approaching, I take a long puff of my last cigarette and glance again at the still sleeping form beside me.

The entire night she had not moved a muscle but that had not bothered me in the least because I knew from her heavy breathing that somewhere in the deepest depths of her slumber, she had perhaps dreamt of a man who did nothing but sit beside her and give a brief summary about his life.

Perhaps she dreamt too if she had wondered who I was, what I looked like, who my people where, and my character.

But alas, she just slept it off without a toss like she could give a fuck. I was beginning to like her already.

I threw a grim smile over that delectable sleeping form and said, “Well, goodnight to you as well. Sleep while you can.”

With that, I put out my cigarette butt on the ash tray and sleep beside her without touching her. It was the deepest, most peaceful slumber I had ever experienced.

It lasted for an hour.

***

“You cheeky devil you.” Walt was grinning ear to ear as we have lunch at the new Japanese restaurant at Tribeca as news from Evelyn had reached my precocious friend about my dalliance last night.

“When I told the boys about that sleeping beauty brothel, I would have expected Belhaven or even Stevens to have gone there. But you? Have you finally broken things up with Angelica already?”

“Lyca doesn’t know I went there so I would appreciate you keep your mouth shut,” I answer dryly as I reach in another serving of raw prawn and dunk it on the hot plate in front of me.

“Hey, you know you can trust me, I’m your boy!” Walt isn’t exactly thrilled with my relationship with Lyca knowing her turbulent history but he knows better than to meddle as her family also handles the legal part of his business.

“Evelyn was rather impressed by you.” I snort in disbelief.

“She looked like she was debating whether I was the spawn of Satan then I get upgraded by being assigned to sleep with the jeune fille vierge.” I say, repeating the exact French words used to describe the delightfully sensual young woman, whom I had truly little doubt was still a virgin in reality given with looks like hers.

Walt’s eye grow twice in size in amazement and he gives a hoot of laughter.

“That’s fucking amazing! Do you know what that means?” He taps me against my shoulder and inspects my reaction and I shrug in indifference as I continue to eat my noodles.

“It’s like the highest honor the House gives to their guests.”

When Walt doesn’t see any recognition on my face he quickly explains.

“Remember when we were in Yale and we had that class with Mr. Ichikawa on Japanese Feudalism? He gave us that novel to read on our spare time about the House of Sleeping Beauties where this old impotent dude practically sleeps with every virgin in the house, saying that one chick is different from another in sleep.

The same rules follow in the Chateau de Beaute Dorme as my Uncle calls it. It starts as a bidding.

All the gentlemen of the room are presented with a beavy of beautiful women wearing Venetian masks to conceal their features, dressed up in lingerie, serving them dinner, barely speaking a word to them as they dine.

The women wear little make-up except for the lipstick that’s the same shade as, get this, their vagina.” Walt snickers as he recounts the dinner he had to endure not being able to chat nor charm the women. “ He takes a long sip of his Asahi Super dry, as if running out of breath from explaining before he resumes.

“The most prominent server is the one who apart from all the other women who wear different colored lingerie, she’s decked in pure white and is called the jeune fille vierge and is also known as the head server. She’s the most special of all of them, because not only is she fucking expensive, but her Duenna, that’s Evelyn to us only bestows that honor to the one they call Le Roi Charmant, who could either be the Head of the table or the male host or the highest selected bidder.”

Walt then gives me a pointed look, like he’s examining me in some revalida.

“But I see it on your face that you weren’t invited to a banquet nor did you have to bid for her either.”

“No, I wasn’t.” I answered slightly bewildered by the notion.

“And that’s what makes it twice more impressive in your case,” Walt laughs as he quickly downs his second round of sake that his gin blossom is starting to show.

“You have to get an invite first. I only told it to you guys so Evelyn could register your names and arrange a party for us but I guess when she met you, she thought differently and made you go all the way instead. Which reminds me, how much did you pay her?”

I answer in the amount agreed upon on that first night.

Walt now looks amazed.

“That’s barely even close to the asking price for a jeune fille. My uncle wanted the same privilege and even charged twice, but Evelyn decline and offered him a different girl, one she said that had far more, erm, experience in dealing with men.”

Walt looks over his shoulder as if he doesn’t want to be heard and lowers his voice.

“You see there was this incident with a previous girl who was selected as the jaune fille vierge but woke up earlier than scheduled and found that she was lying naked to a dead old man.”

He shakes his head, as if trying to get that image off his head.

“Rumor has it that the poor girl was so traumatized that she was confined to a mental hospital and never recovered. So these days, they’re more careful and selective with their patrons and the girls they choose.”

“So are the jaune filles really virgins?”

Walt grins devilishly. “Who knows? The only way you’ll find out is if you stick your cock in her, but that’s against the rules. Though I would like to see someone try.”

***

I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to see her and do this again, but I find myself looking at the card given me by Evelyn. I dial the number and make arrangements with Claude, the House chauffer who is a taciturn fellow as we drive in silence as thoughts of the turn of last night’s events run through my mind.

I cancel my date with Lyca, telling her that I wasn’t feeling well and needed to sleep early.

I could tell from the tone of her disinterested voice that she didn’t really care even though she had at least made an effort to pout her prettily saying that she was going to miss me.

But my thoughts aren’t even remotely centered on Lyca’s lips but are towards someone else’s.

“It’s good again to see you,” Evelyn pauses and gives me a formal nod when she sees me again at the waiting area.

“I trust you had enjoyed your first night.”  

“I did,” I admitted sheepishly. “It was quite unexpectedly pleasant.”

“Then I take it you are not interested in choosing another girl?”

“No, I like the first one just fine.” I felt ridiculous as I didn’t even know her name. Polite conversation tells me that I should at least inquire.

“You realize that we normally charge a higher fee for one such as prized as our Jaune Fille Vierge. I trust Mr. Walters has informed you of such matters?”

“Yes,” I answer acerbically, waving an air of dismissal as I hand her the Centurion Card which she graciously hands over to her assistant.

“Which reminds me, what is her name?” I ask as she hands me back my credit card that I hastily shove back to my wallet.

“Cassandra,” she lies blithely barely batting an eyelash as she leads me again to a different room.

This room is much different than the first. A bit more spacious than the red velvet room, but still ornately decorated in the same romantic Baroque taste that matched the other interior decors of the mansion.

It still had the same king-sized bed, but this time styled differently in muted white, lilac and gold tones with the bed post decorated in gold carvings reminiscent of Italian Capitone.

It was like a setting from the Renaissance and I felt like Casanova about to seduce a beautiful young princess who was again lying naked, this time on top of the covers where her beautiful flawless body was exposed save for the delicate gold Venetian mask covering her face.

I grin and take long easy strides toward her and pause taking in the full view of her taunt perfectly shaped breasts, flat stomach, long shapely legs and notice that she’s also had a Brazilian wax as her nether regions are free from pubic hair.

I shake of the stirring I start to feel in between my legs and opt for humor instead focusing on the costume covering her face.

“I see, are we attending a party?” I chuckle at her and grin as I sit down beside her and trace a finger across the Gold Fleur de Lys mask that not only covers the delicate beauty underneath, but somehow it adds a subtle mystery making her just as alluring which I found almost impossible, having never to compare it with anyone woman I’ve ever been with.

My eyes rove around lovingly at the notes displayed on the top of her mask and absentmindly I lift her gently, the back of her long, dark golden hair brushing against my arm as I trace the golden swirls around the mask that match the color of her hair.

She relaxes against me, trusting me completely as I hold her upper body with my arm and as I look down at her as desire shoots up my system.

The first night I was amused by her, but lust has taken a strong hold of me that it’s taken me a bit by surprised that I look at my surroundings instead of focusing on that gorgeous face where I’m again given a conscious self reminder as I look at the conspicuously hidden cameras that I’m also aware that we’re not fully alone either.

I try to recall the previous night if there had been any cameras but also due to the smaller size of the room, it might have been more difficult to install one. I had come to an earlier conclusion that perhaps Evelyn was testing me the first time by seeing if I could truly keep my word.

The second room, though far more grand in comparison, was also stark in feeling and I knew that my behavior was again being observed.

I shrug these thoughts aside and concentrate on the beauty who was a bit uncomfortable wearing her mask.

Almost without thinking, I gently remove the restraining object and ran my fingers across her soft silky hair.

It was beginning to feel unnerving staying so close to someone so exquisitely tempting yet completely forbidden. I carry her entire weight on my arms easily and with a free arm shift her weight on my right side, the side of her face nestling comfortably against my shoulder as I pull the covers down hastily. I know her unconscious state also makes her unaware of her positioning so I’m just as careful to support her head as I kick off my shoes and gently lay her down beside me.

It seems innocent enough at first but somewhere between carrying her and the thought of that gorgeous body naked against mine brings my libido senses into hyper drive.

Fuck, this is the most erotic thing I’ve ever done and I’ve barely removed my own clothes.

I’m aware that my erection is desperately begging to be sprung free off my navy blue Armani pinstripe suit pants and I hastily remove my matching Armani blazer and tie as I sit straddling myself on top of her in my vest, white blouse and pants.

I keep my lust meter on check and throw the remaining articles of clothing from my body until I’m down to my Calvin Klein boxers.

I’m breathing heavily watching the easy rise and fall of her breasts that I close my eyes and try to remember that I cannot under any circumstances do what I’ve been dying to do to her the minute I walked in the room.

I lean over and nuzzle her neck, inhaling the deep scent that is her mixed with a heady combination that reminds me of strawberries, champagne, and lily of the valley.

“Who are you?”

I ask as my voice goes hoarse before I run my tongue against her neck, tracing it upwards towards her ear, tasting and savoring the very flavor that I know only belongs to her and so far, I could barely recall anyone, even Lyca tasting just as sweet and succulent.

“Tell me your name.” I demand again kissing her cheeks, her eyelids, and her nose as I run my hands through that dark titian mass of hair then with one arm supporting my upper body because I’m afraid with my built might bruise that perfectly smooth lovely skin of hers while the other hand caresses her chin and cups it towards me as I aim my lips for her mouth.

I kiss her slowly, tasting those luscious pink lips that have haunted me from the time I left her last night as I revel in the knowledge that I could never have imagined anything better than this moment as I graze my teeth gently across her velvety soft lips, cupping slight pressure with one hand on her chin.

I groan and continue to kiss her as my hands move further down on her breasts to fondle them and I knew that whatever I had done had aroused her as much as I could feel her nipples harden undeneath my touch.

It feels almost like heaven, but not just quite until I’m completely naked and I could feel my cock poking underneath begging for the same release in that junction between her thighs.

I stop myself from the urge to dry hump her and open my eyes and watch hoping that my Sleeping Beauty would awaken and give me the response I’ve been trying to elicit in these past few moments.

Instead I find with a huge disappointment that my seductive efforts have been in vain as she continues to lie peacefully, unaware of what has just happened.

She just lies there, absolute unaware of my physical assault that I’m shocked for a moment that I close my eyes and rest my forehead against hers as I again breathe heavily trying to erase every erotic thought that’s drumming now in my tormented brain.

Never, ever under hell or high water was I going to rape a woman, let alone a virgin (that is if she truly is still one) while she’s knocked off unconscious.

I’ve attended the most insane frat parties during my time in Yale, even going as far as being invited to other parties from Brown and Sarah Lawrence.

I’ve seen a lot of drunk, unconscious, albeit half-naked attractive college girls but never had I once contemplated in engaging something like this that it makes me feel like a vile lecher.

I was no better than Walt’s uncle Francis and even Evelyn couldn’t trust the man to spend five minutes alone with her.

My thoughts then viciously turn to the other ‘men’ who may want her on those banquets Walt described. I’ve trusted that the impotent dirty old men before me couldn’t have gone far, but I didn’t want to think that there was anyone else who would want this girl more than I.

I already made up my mind.

I barely knew anything about her and already I wanted to be her champion.

Her guardian.

Her knight-in-fucking-shining-armor.

I smile tenderly at her. She answers in a symphony of deep, heavy breathing that I’m amazed that this girl barely snores as I cup my hands on her face and kiss the side of her mouth.

I’m also glad that my erection has ceased knowing that in the next succeeding nights, she will be mine alone and though I’m highly aware that I could never make love to her, she could at least have me in her most vulnerable state.

With a reluctant sigh, I roll off her and sit up to pull the covers up our bodies.

I lay her head underneath my chest where our legs are entangled as I lean my head against the top of her head, taking in the mix of strawberries and lily as I close my eyes in contentment.

Before I drift off to slumber, she briefly half opens her eyes and responds to my previous questions as if answering one in a dream.

“Emily,” she murmurs tiredly as she closes her eyes once more.

***

“I’ve been trying to call you for days, where have you been?” Walt yells from one side of the road when he finds me crossing down a block near my apartment.

It’s been three weeks since that fateful night and I’ve been spending each night with my Sleeping Beauty. It was a mid-afternoon Saturday and I find myself experiencing the most excruciating migraine as I feel my sinuses pounding along to the point that I feel like one side of my mouth has gone numb and my left incisor is going to fall off.

I occasionally press the side of my nose to stop the pain. I search for my pocket for Xanax and Valium as I’m feeling anxious all over again from the pain. I had been prescribed previously by a psychiatrist of these medications and because he’s a good friend of the family’s I’ve always had a stand-by prescription.

I pop them quickly on my mouth as I find Walt easing his way up to me and I quickly down it with the Gatorade bottle I’ve been holding on to for my morning jog.

My mind hasn’t been really focused lately, I’ve barely had a moment’s peace that the only moments that I do finally rest are when I’m with her.

Even if it means having to spend a chaste two or three hours alone with her, I didn’t give a shit.

I needed her like I needed to breathe.

“I heard you broke it off with Lyca.”

“Oh fuck, not you too.” I moan in protest.

Here you’d think Walt would be happy but he looks….concerned.

“Seriously, are you ok? You haven’t been yourself lately. You barely hang out with us, you’re chronically late at work and you look like shit. Christ, you haven’t been getting enough sleep either.”

He throws a worried look at my haggard face shakes his head in dismay.

“Man, I know this is none of my business and I know I’m partly to blame for this but you’ve got to stop seeing that girl. That little sleeping beauty house party was supposed to be just for fun. Like that time when we got high on coke and skied on the Alps for the fucking sheer thrill of it. If I knew you were going go all loopy on just one girl---“  

“Leave it,” I warn as my eyes turn flat cold.

“Jeez, man. Settle down! I’m not the enemy here,” Walt raises both his hands up in truce as I grimace at my behavior.

Weeks have gone by since that first night. It was an obsession, a drug I couldn’t stop.

Walt have every right to call my shit but yet here I am.

I don’t even recognize myself, like my life had been turned down in this need to be with this girl.

I couldn’t understand it, hell, I couldn’t understand my own behavior.

  I keep my silence and pat Walt’s shoulder as a truce.

He grunts and gives me a sour look.

“Look man, it’s gotta stop. Whatever it is. You don’t even look like yourself, shit. Have you seen yourself in front of the mirror?” Walt says quietly, taking note of the bristles growing on my chin.

“I can’t stop thinking of her,” I answer rubbing my hands on my face.

“Then don’t. Figure out who she is, where she’s from, what she’s doing. Get her out of that shit slumber whore party and be her knight in shining armor, that would be the one thing the young hotshot lawyer, defender of the peace and all morality, Philip Jason Young I know would have done.” He looks at me expectantly.

It’s at that moment as Walt and I are arguing I see her walk by.

Sleeping Beauty.

My Emily.

Except out in the sunny mid-afternoon of New York, she's not asleep, but very much awake and crossing the street.

She’s wearing a teal colored shirt dress with a denim messenger wrapped around her slender both and beat-up white sneakers walking like as if she’s in a hurry.

Without warning, I follow her. Ignoring Walt as I mutter something inaudible, probably an apology, leaving him at my wake with an incredulous look.

I don’t care.

I follow her. But not close enough to catch up to her.

There was no way I was just going to introduce myself to her. It might creep her out.

Heck, if I were in her shoes, I’d be running for the hills, if she found out what I had done to her in her defenseless sleep.

She walks in some non-descript diner across the street.

As I enter, I find myself sitting in one of the comfortable bench type counters. The place had a rustic, old-school 1950’s feel to it. Whoever was running it did their best to keep it running considering this was one of the lesser better parts of the city. Not exactly Hell’s Kitchen, but that wasn’t what mattered right now.

I watch in silence as she talks to one of the staff as she makes a beeline inside the staff room.

She emerges a few minutes later donning an apron and I realize she works here as one of the waitress.

A myriad of panic and excitement bubbles in me as I see her walk my way.

“Hi, what can I get you?” She asks cheerfully, completely unaware of who I am and what I’ve done to her those long tortuous nights.

*** 

  Story ends here. Or does it?   Tune in to find out more on the second part Beauty’s Entrapment: Beauty in a Cage.

#original short story #fiction #sleeping beauty #emily browning #romance #creative writing

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