Someone Else's Story update (Patreon)

“Would you like to come up?” her lady asked as soon as they were in the lobby of the townhouse, it being deserted at this time of night, inviting the bold question. “For coffee and also sex?”

Her eyes, gleaming before, now almost shone at the open, challenging directness of her own speech. And she, being a knight, decided to match her lady’s dropped gauntlet… if not exceed it.

“I’m not in the mood for coffee,” she said, stepping closer and closer, daring her lady to give ground that would not be given.

“Good sir,” her lady said warningly, beholden to custom as she was. “This is a public place. Anyone could—“

“Anyone could,” the knight agreed. “But I will.”

She kissed her lady devilishly, moving a hand teasingly to grope her, but leaving it at her heart instead, knowing the delay would drive her lady wild. “Your heart’s racing… I think you like looking at me. And I know you like touching me. What else do you like? Could you like… tasting me?”

Her lady was on her knees almost before the knight could press her downward. And her hands were a frenzy on the knight’s belt.

Perhaps I should employ her as a squire, the knight thought, given how effectively she was being stripped of her armor…

***

Snow slammed the book shut.

She’d been respecting Emma’s laisse-faire approach to raising Henry, allowing him to keep a room in the Charming family loft that was devoid of Regina’s hygienic standards. Henry, not being a messy child, kept it tidy enough, but Snow still felt the need to do a little squaring away. After all, enough dust and he could get allergies. Not to mention how she’d hate for his things to go missing or for something to stain.

It was on this little cleaning jog, which Snow found quite meditational actually, that she found the book making a distinct rectangle within his backpack. Naturally, she had examined it, finding not the Storybook that she could’ve sworn was down on the kitchen table, but some kind of lower-s storybook. Naturally, she was keen to find out what it was, and had opened it to a random page.

She knew what it was now.

“Porn,” Snow said, as if recognizing an old enemy.

***

It was ladies’ night at Storybrooke’s local watering hole, and no one was less happy to have that turn into a roundtable discussion on pornography than Emma, although Belle and Ruby were close seconds. Snow, as ever, seemed quite immune to any social awkwardness this might provoke.

“So it’s a romance novel?” Emma asked, sipping her Mai Tai. “I mean, that’s weird, but I guess there’s worse stuff he could be into.”

“He shouldn’t be into anything!” Snow protested.

“Snow, c’mon, you’re telling me you never read V.C. Andrews or—okay, I guess you didn’t. I don’t even know how people find out about sex in the Enchanted Forest.”

“The birds told me,” Snow said. “They don’t have human lifespans—didn’t get that it was inappropriate.”

“I read about it in a book too,” Belle said.

“Granny told me everything. Everything,” Ruby rued.

“Did they tell you if you got pregnant, you would end up feeding babies worms from your mouth?” Snow asked. “What am I saying—Emma, you’re alright with Henry consuming pornography?”

Emma groaned. “I suppose I should talk it over with Regina. But it’s our business and only our business. I don’t want this to become a town meeting just because Henry saw a boob.”

“Oh, there’s more than one!” Snow said.

“There usually are…”

Snow was already hauling the book from her tote bag. “Describing it would be bad enough, but there are illustrations--!”

“Okay, what is this, the Kama Sutra?”

“Doesn’t look like it,” Belle opined, staring professionally.

“Definitely not,” Ruby agreed.

Emma waved them off. “Honestly, I don’t see the difference.”

“Well, which would you rather find more inappropriate?” Snow asked rhetorically. “Me… describing my naked body, or me stripping down and showing it to you?”

“That’s a very fine line, actually,” Emma said.

Ruby hastily finished her drink. “So are we voting or…?”

Snow slammed the book down on the table, opened it to a random passage, then flipped a few pages until she’d found a suspect line. “’You want so badly to be a good girl… but you’ve got such a bad pussy…’”

“Hunh, that old line,” Ruby said.

“And look, there’s a picture on the very next page--!”

Everyone craned their heads in.

“I think Dorothy and I tried that,” Ruby said.

“Rumpel and I definitely tried that,” Belle said.

“I think it’s kinda artistic,” Emma said. “And this isn’t all—stuff—is it?”

Snow waved her hand impatiently. “There are some dragons and swordfights and trolls…”

“Oh, so it’s one of those slice of life stories?”

“But there is also porn!” Snow concluded absolutely.

“Well, what am I supposed to do about it?” Emma asked. “It’s not like I can stop Henry from going to 99% of the internet!”

“Plus,” Ruby said, “I just can’t see you trying to stop people from doing porn.”

“Star in it, maybe,” Belle said.

“Hey! Mean!”

“No, some of those porn stars are really good-looking,” Ruby said.

“Well, you can’t just do nothing!” Snow protested. “Ignorance is not bliss when it comes to rearing a child!”

Emma scratched her head. “I could’ve sworn I had a few more years of him being tiny and cute coming my way… okay, I suppose if he’s reading porn, it should at least be good porn.”

“What!?”

“Not good like…” Emma made a gesture she instantly regretted. “More good like…” Emma looked to Ruby and Belle for help. “No one getting choked or slapped or gagging or crying—“

“How is that good porn?” Ruby asked. “Is there at least spitting?”

“No rapey stuff,” Emma said conclusively. “I don’t want some weird kid who jerks off to Criminal Minds.”

“What if,” Belle ventured, “a virginal Saxon princess offers herself to a Viking war chief to keep her village from being raided, but secretly, she’s been curious about how sensitive her blossoming body has become and drawn to the dark, mercurial man who seems haunted by a secret past…”

“Okay, super-specific,” Emma said.

“Not really,” Ruby said. “It’s Swelling Passions. Everyone’s read it.”

“’Swelling Passions’?”

“The town getting cut off by flying monkeys and ice walls really does a number on internet connections,” Belle explained. “I order a lot of urban fantasy novels. And Gia on DVD.”

“When the war chief says he’ll spare her village no matter what, but she insists he ravage her to keep her end of the bargain…!” Ruby excitedly recalled.

Snow groaned fondly.

“Okay, suppose I shouldn’t be surprised that the town ruled by a woman who owns over a dozen corsets has some kink in it,” Emma said, mostly to herself.

“I seem to recall you checking out a few Anita Blake novels—“

“Hey!” Emma told Belle. “Don’t you have a vow of silence or something when it comes to this? And they were The Hollows.”

Snow ignored the growing discourse concerning her daughter’s masturbation habits to examine the book for, as Emma had said, rapeyness. There was nothing so far, just some spanking, and who wasn’t into that? Certainly not Ariel…

She came to another picture. “You know, she looks familiar…”

“Who?” Emma asked, coming around to the book. “The one with clothes or the one without?”

“The one without—I think that’s Regina!”

Ruby squinted at it. “It is!”

“Okay,” Belle said, “so I take it Henry was not reading the book for sex. Crisis averted!”

“Or he was,” Ruby pointed out. “Crisis much, much bigger.”

“He wasn’t,” Emma told them in no uncertain terms. “So if that’s Regina, who’s the blonde? Maleficent? Tinkerbell?”

“Emma, isn’t that your necklace?” Belle asked.

“Where?” Ruby asked.

“Right there, between Regina’s teeth.”

“And that looks like your wrist tattoo?” Snow pointed out.

“Where?”

“It’s right between Regina’s—“

Emma slammed the book shut and stood up so fast she knocked her chair over. “ALRIGHT! I have put up with a lot in this town. A lot! It’s turned out that just about everyone I’ve ever known, cared about, or been related to, is a fairy tale character. I spent time as the Devil! I killed the villain of a movie about dogs! And I haven’t been able to buy a fashionable jacket in five years! But I am drawing the line here! Look at this! There is a book the size of Game of Thrones about me having sex with another woman! Look!” She flipped through the book. “It’s copy-edited! There are illustrations! There’s an index! No. No, no, no. I’m done. The topic is closed, as far as I’m concerned, no one ever wrote more than two words about me and Regina fisting each other, let alone a freakin’ epic!”

She stomped off, stopping only to haul the door open and cry “’You want to be a good girl, but you’ve got such a bad pussy’!?!?” before she flung herself out into the night.

From the bar, Smee coughed. “So, uhh… you guys finished reading that book or…?”