Lumen Blumfeld—the love of my life—knelt before me. She looked up at me with awe and expectation, which caused the knot in my stomach to churn. Her pale, white hair glowed dimly in the candle light and her semi-translucent albino skin glistened with a thin mist of sweat. Combined with her thin, white nightgown, she looked more like a ghost than a flesh-and-blood woman. Yet this woman, the one whom I had sworn to love and protect was awash with a twisted excitement that disquieted my very soul.
Panting softly in anticipation, her gaze turned towards the candle in my hand, at once fixed with a singular fascination and lost as if within a dream.
"Are you sure about this?" I asked, nearly choking on my own spit.
"Yes, my love," Lumen sighed. "Please, I need this. More than anything else, I need it!"
***
"My love," Lumen sighed into my neck that fateful night. "I have a confession to make."
"Of course," I said. "You can tell me anything."
I gave my wife a tight squeeze and she huddled in closer to my chest, breathing in deeply before continuing.
"It's about my scars," she said at length.
"From when you were kidnapped?"
"Yes," Lumen said. "I think I'm finally ready to tell you the whole story."
She turned to face me, a hint of tears in the corners of her eyes as she spoke.
"When my father was ascending to become Duke," she said. "He had many rivals. Rivals who would stop at nothing to prevent him from gaining power. Rivals who would stoop to any depth to stop him. Lord Basine was one of those rivals, that much I've told you. For over four months, I enjoyed his 'hospitality' before I was rescued. You have heard I was tortured and you, of course, have seen the scars upon my back. Yet the greatest scars I hold within, my love, and their weight burdens me still."
Lumen shuddered as she spoke before continuing.
"Desperate to learn something to use against my father," she said. "Basine had me tortured daily. Of course, I knew nothing that would help his cause, but my heartfelt entreaties did not sway Lord Basine, nor the hand of his torturer. I was flogged daily, for hours at a time, until one day Basine offered me a reprieve. He told me that in exchange for letting him torture me by his own hand, he would offer me a 'treat'. I accepted not knowing what fate awaited me and when he had me brought to his chambers, where was only a table with a candle on it."
"He took me, gently, yet firmly by the head and spread my eye. Then ever-so-slowly he poured wax into it. It should have been horrible, but after months of being whipped, it was the most delicate and gentle pain I had ever felt! There was something so intimate about it, so kind. Though I knew it was wrong, some part of me came to anticipate his wax over the whip—in fact, deep within me some part even enjoyed it..."
"When my father finally came to my rescue, he saw the bloody and savaged state I was in and declared that each man under Basine was to have his entrails burned before him. I wept myself to sleep in my father's lap that night to their chorus."
Lumen shuddered in my arms. The petite woman felt more like a frail flower than anything else, but a growing warmth coming from her betrayed her intentions ere she spoke.
"I don't know what to call it," Lumen sobbed softly. "Perhaps he cast a spell upon me, or perhaps his own twisted soul corrupted mine. But my love, I tell you the truth: there is not a day that goes by when I do not wish you to do the very same to me!"
***
"My love?" Lumen's voice snapped me back into the moment. "Please, I am ready. I've wanted this ever since our wedding night. Please don't make me wait any longer."
Lumen tilted her head back, while I stood over her, candle in hand. Spreading her eyelids,