I dream of the snow palace almost every night, the glitter of ice reflecting off of my bruised skin, making me whiter than I am except for the places he has marked. The long black candles flare high along the walls, burning day and night in my darkness. He likes to fuck me with the black candles while I’m sleeping and I think I will remember the smell of candle wax all of my life. I am only allowed to wear one particular white velvet dress during the day, the one with the flowing long skirt that he so often tosses up over my head so that I can’t see what he will do next when he bends me over the ice ledge to take care of me.
At night I have to follow the intricate ritual he designed for me. “Isabelle, get ready for bed,” he orders every night. Some nights I hate it just like I hate the cold and I ask him if I have to do it and he ignores me, or sometimes he tells me to bring him a candle and lets Morgan watch what he does to me. He likes to make me cry because my tears are so warm.
On the nights when I behave the way I know I should I take care of all five things exactly the way he wants. I start by laying out his equipment on the high shelf between our beds. I have to kiss each instrument as I set it out — the candles, the whip, the icicles, the ropes, and all the different cold metal things he uses to hurt me with. Sometimes there are new instruments for me to see before I sleep so that I can dream about them. After this first step is complete, I have to undress completely and tiptoe across the ice in my bare feet to where he sits in the fire room by his big fire and kneel at his feet. I have to ask his permission to sleep. I have to ask what position he would like me in tonight. Then I have to ask if there is anything else I can do to please him before I retire. A lot of times he wants me to open my mouth for his soft cock and swallow all of his piss, and I like this enormously because it is so warm and so close and it makes Morgan so envious watching from the corner.
Finally I have to braid two perfect braids down the sides of my long black hair. They are better than ropes, he says. I am not allowed to have any hair anywhere else on my body except for my head. I have to use the braids to tie my hair to two of the many railing posts at the head of the bed, always remembering whether he wants me belly up or face down. I try to fall asleep right away because I never know whether he will let me sleep through the whole night untouched or if I will spend most of the night in the dream that is his force and his pain. Sometimes I think he doesn’t feel anything unless he’s hurting me. He’s never cold, he doesn’t need much sleep, he knows everything. He tells me grand stories of other places. He likes to count things; numbers give him pleasure. He counts the days I’ve been here and marks them on the wall above my bed, he has Morgan strip me and then he counts my marks. The most separate marks ever counted on my body so far was sixty-three, but sometimes they all sort of blend together. He counts the nights I misbehave and lets me know when they reach three in one week so that I can think about and be afraid of the trip to Morgan’s room in the middle of the night when he leaves me there and puts in his earplugs.
Tonight he told me to tie myself belly down and that I may throw the heavy white quilt across my body. I am grateful for small favors; I will fall asleep faster this way. But he was drinking the dark brandy that he shares with Morgan and sometimes when he drinks he forgets who I am and how fragile I can be. Sometimes I think he will kill me with his force in the middle of the night; sometimes I think I would like him to. But he would probably tell me was going to kill me way ahead of time so that I could agonize over it the way I do all of his other plans. “Tonight I will only use the big riding crop, Isabelle,” he’ll tell me early in the day, “and I will only use it on the front of your thighs and your pussy, but I will whip you there until there is no white skin left.” Then my body actually hurts in advance without ever being touched.
He always does as he says. I love him for that. He keeps my mind and my heart and my body in a constant state of anticipation, a state of sexual desire, a state of craving his touch, and I will always worship him for giving me exactly what I need. When he knows I am about to break, he’ll keep me in the fire-room tied to a leash and let me sleep on the soft black fur by the big fire, curled up like a cat, and he’ll keep Morgan away from me the whole time.
I’ve carefully braided my hair, tied it to the railing, and I lie belly down with the white quilt over me. I can’t sleep, as much as I want to. I only dream and my dreams are like waking and I can’t tell them apart from him.
When he comes to me he is warm, so warm, and he is climbing on my back under the quilt and whispering in my ear, “One last time, my ice princess, one last time before I go,” and I don’t know what he means and I am terrified that he will leave me here but he is lifting my ass up towards him and unfastening his belt. “I will fuck my little princess up the ass hard one more time and then we will make the marks that will last.” His hard cock is pressing against my asshole and he slides it in, just the tip, pausing, waiting, and it is exquisite and I can’t say a word. “Fuck me, please, don’t leave me, please, take me with you, I can’t stay warm without you” are the words I want to say but I press back into him and take his cock up into me and sometimes the body knows the words I cannot say and nothing else matters but to be right there and to submerge into his power. He is filling me up with his fluids and then he is filling me up with ice; ice in my ass after his cock is out, ice packed into my pussy, ice in my mouth that he tells me to bite down on while he uses each instrument one last time on a different part of my body. I think that I may freeze from the inside out.
His belt on my ass is warm and good and I hope he never stops. The whip across my back stings hard but I never move, almost as though I’m frozen in place. The crop up and down my legs has the rhythm of a ballet. He unties me and turns me over. “These clamps will stay on you while I’m gone,” he says and I can’t imagine because more than ten minutes makes me completely numb. He clamps the big ornate ones on my nipples and the ten smaller ones along my pussy lips. I love this, I can’t help it. Ice is melting everywhere from the heat that he gives me, but he only refills me and packs me with ice when it does.
He has the knife out and I can hear a train whistle from far outside the palace and suddenly I know that this night is as true as the rest and that he is leaving. It is the first whistle I have heard in all this time since I arrived. I would rather he kill me than leave and I tell him that. “Only in my own way, Isabelle,” he says, “Only in my own special way.” The small knife is marking my belly; he is carving his symbol into my skin, the symbol of the palace and the force of the fire. I don’t look; I hope it will be beautiful later when I am left alone. He pauses now and then to rub it with more ice — my whole body is feeling numb but I still crave him on me.
He finishes my arms and legs with the riding crop and I am floating, floating on his strength and his strokes and his words and his need to hurt me and own me. “Isabelle,” he finally whispers, “I’ve saved your breasts for Morgan. I had to, in return for the promise to care for you while I’m gone.” The words send me hope, they suggest he will return. I will wait forever.
He sits behind me and holds my arms behind my back and then Morgan creeps into the room and I can feel only the claws across my breasts, scraping, scratching, pausing to count the marks, starting in again, counting, always counting, until there must be a hundred marks on each breast and there is heavy breath both behind and in front of me and I am being lifted, lifted, and carried out to one of the ice rooms. I am floating on the pain and the ice numbing my insides and I feel like the queen of the castle being carried to her throne.
There is green velvet draped across the ceiling and nothing but ice blocks all around the walls. They lay me back into one of the hollowed out blocks and the cold spray begins and I am watching him watch me and I don’t’ even have to look down to know that my body is covered with the marks of his love and that nothing else matters but that I wait for him just like this with my arms and legs spread wide and open for his power. He is saying goodbye, my princess, goodbye until I return, and I am drowning in love and I am smothered in freezing water and I know I will not move until he comes back with his heat to melt all my ice away.
