A Mirror's view, One Day and One Night

Author's notes: Word count = 1583, before Pictures, formatting and notes. This is a contest entry for "House Of Black & White "  Prompt # 86. You realize you can touch your reflection and go through the Mirror, except... There is a cost
1000 points

Ariel stopped, with a foot on two different steps, as an involuntary moan fell from her mouth. Her body doubled over, and her right hand pressed tightly against her stomach. A few seconds later, her chin rose from her chest to point toward the ceiling. With a deep breath, the fingers of her left hand caressed her cheek, and a shiver pulsed down through her arm.

"It's happening, the touch of stone. Oh, Damn," Ariel said, her eyes focused on the remaining steps between her and the attic landing. "The time is too short. How can I find a release from this curse if my only accomplishment is undoing Leira's daily hurts?" Her body straightened, and the climb resumed up the wide stairway. Each beleaguered footstep drew her closer to the dark room and its glyph-covered walls where her magical prison stood, suspended in its frame.

"Why, Jason, are you no help? Is the game that great a thrill?" said Ariel as she stopped atop the stairs, leaned over the rail, and glared toward the study's doorway on the ground floor. "What if I end it now ... just stay away and let the curse consume me? Would she remain trapped in that vessel ... that enchanted prism of polished silver and crystal? No, I would be forced to watch her from my encasement of a cold marble prison, compelled to endure as she tore down everything I have made."

At the end of the hall, as she reached out, a long spark snapped from the brass handle of the door to her hand. Her arm jerked back, her hand becoming a fist, and her face scrunched into a mash of wrinkles and tears.

"Damn, even the carpets reach out to punish me. Why did I agree."

Ariel pushed open the door, took a match from the tray, and lit the hurricane lamp atop the credenza. Standing there in the amber glow of its firelight, the room came alive. Shadows danced as the windows revealed the last glimmer of dusk, giving way to night. The mix of sunset and the lamp's light absorbed into the wallpaper, and the runic symbols imprinted upon it began to glow. Ariel stood before the Mirror, standing alone in the center of the room. It is adorned with mystic symbols carved into its wooden frame. The lamplight teased at its gold-leaf gilding. Her face was fraught and pale in the Mirror's reflection, with no hint of joy. Ariel saw nothing of the girl she once was.

"Speculum Caldus, Speculum Algus, Apererio Mea Verum Sui." The foul words of Latin fell from her lips, their taste bitter with disdain, and their utterance as repugnant as the vomit she fought to hold down.

"Oh, why did I agree to this? Why did I give in to his demands?"

"Because you're weak," said the voice coming from the new face before her. "Too afraid to be a real woman, scared to permit yourself beyond the threshold of your good and proper manner, too frightened to let loose the passion within your hungering soul. You are the child who brought about his quest for this enchantment. It is not the Mirror, but you who made me. Now, release me before it's too late."

Ariel studied the reflection. Gone was the image of propriety; no sign left of modesty or the genteel. No, the reflection in the Mirror, Leira, her buxom bosom straining against the fabric of her low-cut gown. Her loose blonde tresses swept about in disarray as if she had just stepped from the stirrups of a stallion and raced at a demon's gait. Her green eyes glowed like emerald stars as the corners of her wet, scarlet lips twisted up towards her diamond-studded earrings.

The women's images within and out of the Mirror are complete opposites. If one was right-handed—the other used her left. One brunette, the other blonde, Leira, was the reverse of Ariel, but only one wanted the torment to end. Only one felt trapped by the curse that separated one from the vision of the other. Only one prayed to be whole again.

Ariel held her fingers a scant inch from the face before her. "I will win in the end. You cannot deceive him forever. One day, he will want children; you will never bear them, care for them. You lack the nurturing heart necessary. You are about the moment's lust, the needs of the flesh. And flesh is weak!"

"Oh, sister ... what a quandary it is for you, being both right and wrong simultaneously. Yes, the flesh gives into its desires, but the frailty is not mine. His hands are the ones that cannot resist the feel of my breasts. His palette craves the taste of my loins. Suppose you had only accepted the truth of these things before. If you had let me have control just once in a while and let yourself go, then there would be no pain held by the silver and crystalline glass between us. It cleaves us apart because you are afraid. Now ... touch its surface, be the good wife, do as duty requires without complaint, do it now---before you are lost!"

Ariel let her fingers touch the surface of the glass, and a flash ended all sight. When the warm umber and yellows of the flickering lamp replaced the fading white blindness, Leira pulled her hand away from the Mirror.

Leira inhaled deeply and opened her eyes. The reflection within the gilded frame now showed as Ariel. The edges of Ariel's dark, wavy hair melded into the fog of shadows behind her, and her high-necked white dress stood in stark contrast to the cracked, web-tinted portrait of ancient regret.

"Rest well, dear sister, for I feel most energetic this evening. I think I shall undress our sweet Jason in the parlor. Then we will move on, feeding our naked lust atop those fancy crocheted tablecloths on your dining-room table. We will adjourn from there, taking our pleasures as they find us, room by room, until we reach that great high-posted bed. The one you failed to embrace with the same zeal as your love of knick-knack and lace."

Leira touched her hands to the sides of her face and let her fingertips glide down over her neck, chest, and breasts. She squeezed at them, letting a soft moan escape as she loosened the laces that held the fleshy mounds in their tight confinement.

"Once there, I will convince him to play the game as we have so many nights. I will tie him, and then I will drain him, drinking from him every ounce of energy, consuming every glimmer of affection he may hold. On the morrow, you will find no comfort in his heart, no wanting of you beyond the keeping of his slumbering abode."

The face within the Mirror spoke back, "You are a succubus, an evil witch. Leira you are a gratuitous whore! One day, I will find the answer. One day, I will put you back in your place. I will temper your hold over him. Then life will move again in the direction our Maker designed. I will again be a complete woman. I will be his true friend, lover, mother of his children, and his only wife!"

"Oh dear Ariel, so long as you think of yourself as his property, you shall have only half a life. You believe the answer is hidden when it lies before you in plain sight. Forget the whispers taught you at mother's knee and let your voice scream out with unbridled abandon. Give into yourself."

Leira's tongue brushed over the inside edge of her pouty lips as their corners pulled them back into a tight, thin line. The flurry of sleek silk from her dress rushed up to meet her hand as she spun from the Mirror. Drawing a deep breath, she stopped beside the credenza beside the door and blew out the lamp's flame before setting it down. A spark flew from her fingertip to the brass when she reached for the door handle.

"Oh ... how exciting the air is tonight, it is electric, wouldn't you say?"

Leira closed the door and walked down the stairs. At their base, she adjusted the top of her bustier, pulled a gather of the hem from her dress, and tucked its edge under her belt. Her smooth, tan leg showed from ankle to thigh with every other stride.

She looked about the house. Everything was perfect. Not a single doily or other such frilly thing showed out of place. She smiled at the images that raced through her mind. The aroma of his tobacco wafted out from Jason's den. Leira strolled in that direction, her hips swaying with each step atop her stilettoed heels.

"Oh, Ariel, forgive me the mess I am about to make of our house. Yes, dear sister, you are correct. He may, one day, smash the Mirror and, with it, his fantasy's spell. However, I assure you ... it will not be tonight. For now, I am his lover, his wild thing, the one who makes his fantasy her own desires, so long as you let your sense of a dutiful wife deny the true person inside. It is Leira who rules the night."