When the small party had ended, a lady’s maid chosen specifically to serve me removed my gown, brushed out my hair, and left me waiting in a bed of clean linen.
My new boudoir was finer than any room in my parents’ brownstone.
Pliant and submissive I lay beneath my husband when he arrived to claim his right. I think I must have pleased him, for he smiled a great deal.
When he flopped over to catch his breath, I waited for the clock to strike. Booming louder than ever before, the walls shook, my lips curved, and silence crashed through the house.
The Hatter stole in, the slippery place between my thighs tight and twitchy.
Happy to sit up and let him watch the lace peignoir slip from my shoulder, I said hello.
His grin, the absolute mirth in his yellow eyes, made my heart sing. “What is this I see? What have you done, Alice?”
What had I done?
Why was my pretty gown spattered and stained red?
My bridal bed’s linens were wet with warmth, blood pooling... blood everywhere.
At my side, eyes flat and unblinking, the man who was my husband lay, dozens of slices open and oozing... as if he’d been carved by a knife.
It had been a knife, for I found it cradled in my palm. The same frosting crusted knife we had used to cut the wedding cake
Confusion drew me to say, “The Red Queen must have been here.”
“Oh, my love.” Already the Hatter was crawling over my body, a creeping long-limbed spider ready to devour its meal. “What trouble you are.”
The feel of a kiss, of a foul tongue and of wicked hands tearing lace from my breasts, drew a sigh from my lips. He had a way of touching me everywhere at once, his fingers dancing in the remnants of my late husband’s moment of bliss.
Knees bent, thighs parting of their own accord, I took a deep breath of the grave. “I could use a cup of tea.”
All bones and hard knots under his hideous clothes, I explored the body of the one who owned me. Where a thick stalk of flesh jutted from his groin, I let my fingers li
nger, working up and down that veined shaft, eager to drive the Hatter mad.
Desire is a strange kind of demon. It knows how to gnaw a soul into shapes for its pleasure, but it also must be fed.
He was mine as much as I was his. I knew it when he tore my fist from his cock. I relished it when my knees were forced to my ears. And I screamed for him when he began to fuck me so hard the headboard banged a tick-tock against the wall.
Unlike when the corpse at my side had let loose its lust upon me, I rocked my hips and found breathing unnecessary to raw pleasure.
These things my Hatter had taught me. These things I gave him so that the white padded walls might never surround me again.
When he told me to ride him, I bounced on his lap. When he hissed his desire to hump me like a dog takes a bitch, I braced on hands and knees. When the fire came, when I begged for him to end the torment, I knew why hell was so much more glorious than the deceit of heaven and its deaf god.
Gouging the back of my lover deeper than the twins had ever clawed me, I came apart splendidly.
Epilogue
“Poor, sweet, baby.” The child trembling in his bed raised huge brown eyes to take in the sweet-voiced lady sitting prim across the nursery. “Did that dust-laden Hatter scare you?”
Wedding gown pure and glimmering, veil draped atop golden hair artfully arranged on her head, sat a girl on the cusp of womanhood. Blue eyes forlorn and equally resolved, a teacup and saucer resting atop her unblemished skirt, she said, “You don’t need to be afraid of him. He cannot touch you unless you touch him first or give him permission. Trust me when I tell you, never speak to him. Do not heed a single word he says.”
Blinking, sleep crusting the child’s eyes, the little one asked, “Why?”
“Madder than a march hare, that one. The Hatter, he’s a pure devil. A true psychopath. Do you know that word, dear child?”
A stunted shake of the head came before a babe hardly out of the cradle began to wail. “Why won’t they leave me alone?”