Soon everyon
e inside was outside, and the lawn was covered in humans who were thrilled to feel the sun on their faces and the wind in their hair once again.
“Are we really free of the curse? Or will we turn back if we go back inside?” One of them asked.
Belle had a hunch but couldn’t speak in beast form, so she waved a paw toward the front doors like, go ahead, it’s ok, you’ll see. Sure enough, they were all able to come and go from the manor now, curse free.
They all filed back inside, so Belle and Gastard could shift human and speak, and congratulatory hugs, back slaps and handshakes could carry on a bit easier for them.
“How did you know?” Gastard asked her when the gaiety had died down just a little and the two could speak without being constantly interrupted with grateful thank you’s.
“I figured that the barrier keeping them on this side of the door was like the barrier that had been keeping you off the land. If you could get through the one, with me, then maybe they could pass through this one, if they were also with me. It worked. I broke their curse. I was the one who’d been the cause of everything. I was also the one who could fix everything, it seems.”
“Everything but your own curse, and now mine?”
“I have a theory about that, too. I think my personal curse, like Eva said, wasn’t to keep me contained. Forcing them to stay here and take care of me was their curse.
Dad was protective, too protective. He wanted me to be taken care of, even taken care of, if you know what I mean. Just not by you, or any man.
My curse was to keep me looking like something no one would ever want to fuck when I left his protection here. Only when you did still want to, and we became one again, in my bed, it short-circuited or something, and spread to you, too.”
“So how do we break the last curse, then? The short-circuited one? Or are we just stuck with it?
I’m fine if we are, really. I don’t ever want to lose you again, Belle. If human inside this manor and animal outside of it is the only way I can have you, I’ll take it. I’ll take you in any way I can get you.”
“Do you mean that? That you’d take me any way you can get me? Because I think that may be the answer to breaking our curse, as well.”
Belle
Late that night, when manor and town alike were silent and nothing stirred anywhere, Belle and Gastard snuck out of the manor. Surprisingly, many of the manor staff had decided to stay and continue to work for Belle, in human form. A vast majority of the ones who had left also promised that they’d be back to work too, once they’d had some time to reconnect with friends and family.
Whether the manor was full or empty though, didn’t matter at the moment, for what needed to be done now, to break the last curse, needed to be done outside, anyway, Belle was quite sure of it.
She’d already told Gastard her plan to break the last curse, as she knew that once they stepped outside together, there’d be no way to speak. When she told him her plan he laughed out loud.
“You’re telling me that to break the last curse, the curse we now share, we need to literally make ‘The Beast With Two Backs?’”
“Makes sense, doesn’t it? This form was intended to keep everyone from wanting me, only it didn’t work. You still wanted me. Our joinings here in the manor caused this curse, doesn’t it make sense that our joining, outside this manor, in our cursed forms, would break it? I mean, that would show dad, right? If we found and fucked each other in the forms designed to keep us from fucking at all?”
“It does make sense, in a warped way. Although, to be honest, I considered doing it already. Earlier, when we went to town on our mission to see if my curse would alter itself back once I was off your property, I thought about testing the only other part of my original curse—the inability to find release. But I knew we had the entire manor waiting to hear our results.
I’m game, of course. I’ll fuck you anywhere you want, anytime you want me to. Indoors or out, human or beast, your wants are my wants, my love. And your needs are my needs. If pleasuring you outside will prove that my original curse is broken, and break this last one as well, freeing you once and for all, I’ll gladly do it.
Hell, I’d do it even if it had no other purpose than to please you, because you asked me to. I’m under your spell, Belle. I always have been and always will be, no matter the form that takes. That’s one spell that will never, ever be broken. So lead on, my love. I’ll follow you anywhere. Let’s do this.”
They slipped outside together, becoming beasts the very moment they did.
Belle led Gastard away from the town, back behind the manor, confident that they’d not be seen. She was oddly nervous, and wandered even further from the manor than she’d intended, just because she was unsure of how to proceed from here.
She wanted him badly, that wasn’t the issue. She just didn’t know how to stop walking and start… not… walking.
Maybe he sensed that and took pity on her, or maybe he just couldn’t wait anymore himself, but either way, when he reached a paw out and stopped her progress, she was grateful.
She stood still, in case she’d misunderstood and he’d stopped her because he heard someone coming, or scented some other danger. She thought for a moment about how far she had come, from not wanting to leave the manor walls and even become this beast, even as it kept her from her one true love, to now.
Now she didn’t even think twice about this form. Not what he’d think when he looked at her, not of how large and unwieldy she felt. This form had become a part of who she was now, and she’d almost miss it once it was gone.
Almost, but not quite.