Bicorn Boyfriend: Torvald (special preview)

I was always sickly and weak as a child, so it came as a surprise to me when my parents found me a husband the first time. Most of my youth was spent either in bed or my wheelchair, and I was always being educated in some form or fashion. Either I taught myself or my family hired tutors for me.

I wanted to make myself useful in some way, since I was the first born and had very little chance of producing an heir, let alone finding someone who would want to be with me. I practiced the arts first, thinking that, as a lady, it would be fitting. I was terrible at it. I faired well with the piano, but I found painting or studying paintings to be dreadfully dull. I had no eye for color, I half suspect I may not see colors like the rest of the world. And do not get me started on form or light and shadow, it does not all click for me the way it does for artists, I suppose.

I studied history for a day or two. I know it is important, but it all felt like men running in place, creating the same events over and over again. To me, that was insanity, so I turned to science. It was there I found a knack for it. It wasn’t the ‘feminine’ thing to do, apparently, but I took comfort in it. I found great pleasure in the working machinations of the body. I enjoyed studying how blood flowed, how nerves ticked, how muscles moved. It wasn’t something my parents thought I should be learning, but they assuaged me and my growing intellect. 

They hired a tutor for me, hoping that I would lose interest once I had actual hands on experience with what I so enjoyed in books. My tutor was a tad bit younger than me, just freshly graduated from university, and he was eager to teach, to show me the world I had so admired in text. He brought in anatomy figures and up to date books. He offered to take me to a demonstration of surgery, which my parents thought was inappropriate. What was truly inappropriate was what we did behind closed doors. 

After some months together, my tutor and I harbored a natural attraction to one another. He was young, handsome, educated, and virile. I was lovely, intelligent, and had been harboring a hunger for years that he gladly satiated. I was interested in his anatomy, the shape of it, the feel of it, even the taste of it. 

He asked for my hand in marriage, and although my family was reticent to accept, they soon allowed us to wed. Although, shortly after we were married, he was called away for another job. We had such a short time together, although it was blissful. I was also out of my family’s estate, which was nice. I could move around my own home any way I pleased. I worked on building up my strength, which had been something my mother deemed was ‘too hard’ for me to do. 

My husband returned home, but only for a short while. He was being called off to another job, one that he promised would bring us a great deal of money. My exercises had found me in good form, and we made love as much as we could stand one another. I was curious to see the limits a body could take, even while experiencing great pleasure. Was there even a limit to gratification? Could one sustain such heights of frenzy for long or would the body eventually give out?

When my husband left again, I continued to work on building my strength again. I wanted to be able to walk without the aid of a cane or growing tired and weary so quickly. When I became ill suddenly, I was worried I had found the limits to my body. I became weak again and would vomit without warning. 

It came as such a surprise to me to learn I was with child, I didn’t believe the doctor at first. I had been told all my life I was too weak, too puny to ever conceive. I felt smug in my pregnancy, having proved so many people around me wrong. I was excited to tell my husband the good news, but when I received a letter from the estate he was working for, rather than him, I lost a great deal of joy. 

The letter came with his salary, as well as extra for his loss. It was a great sum of money, one I had never hoped to see. His employer, a man named Torvald Rothschild, invited me to come live with him on his estate. He kept correspondence with me throughout my pregnancy, even sending some of his own doctors to look after me. I was suspicious of his efforts as it felt like guilt.

I gave birth to a daughter on a particularly horrible day in the fall. A storm was raging, the screams of the wind matched my own. She was coming out backwards and, outside, lightning struck a tree which started a fire. It spread in the yard, and smoke started to fill the house. My daughter was a miracle, coming out healthy, screeching, and covered in my blood. I named her Carmine. 

After she was born, I was moved back to my family’s estate where, almost immediately, my mother started to take Carmine from me. She attempted to rename her, only allowing me to hold her when she needed feeding. I was growing weary of her treatment of me, of my child.

I woke one morning to see a strange creature standing over top of me. His long horns jutted from each side of the forehead, curling upwards and ending in sharp, deadly points. I blinked a few times as I gazed at this dark shadow. I didn’t believe in an afterlife, but perhaps it was here to take me to it.

“I am Torvald Rothschild,” he says with a voice that could shake stone. “I’ve come to take you back with me.”