Or How I Slept With Anne Boleyn and Was Tortured By Henry VIII
I had the weirdest nightmare last night. I was friends with both Henry VIII and Anne Boleyn. Such good friends that I actually slept with Boleyn when she wasn't with the king. (Literally slept with, I was just a confidante—she had other men for sexual partners.) Well, for some reason Henry became paranoid, soured on Anne, and cut a marriage deal with the mother of a young princess from some other country—one of those political marriage pacts. He married the girl and instantly began a purge of his former friends and consorts.
I didn't realize exactly what was happening at first. The night of the marriage I visited Anne's room to discover that she was to be secluded before her impending death. She began to show me what he'd already done to her. She had torturous looking S/M gear over her body, things that might be sexy in a different context, but were awful to see in this one. One example: nipple clamps attached to a chastity belt. Anytime she made any but the slightest movement the clamps would tug downward and cause pain to her breasts, while also digging painfully into her genitals. I could barely look as she showed me; it caused me too much pain to see her in so much pain. I actually cried out in sympathy. My noise caught the king's servant's attention and I was taken from her room for a visit with the newly married king.
Henry proceeded to tell me that I was to be exiled from his court, that I had to leave the next morning. He presented an inauthentically sad front, the kind of pseudo-emotion that villains often exhibit in movies. There was also a menacing undertone to his words. He gave me a bear hug toward the end of our conversation. As he hugged me I could feel a sharp piercing into my skin. I assumed it was a piece of his clothing that he was using to underscore his message that I'd better leave or end up dead.
Once back in Anne's room, I noticed a prickling sensation in my back. I reached around and felt something sticking out, like a bee stinger or a piece of pencil which had broken off. I pulled it out and saw what looked like the end of an incense stick. It must have been lodged an inch or so into my skin.
Then I noticed others. As I pulled them out I became aware on one after the other over my entire body. I began to panic, but calmed myself enough to pull them out. It was incredibly painful to dislodge them, as pulling the wood out created friction on my tender interior layers of skin and sometimes splintered on its way out. But it was much worse to leave them in.
Some were shallowly lodged, but others went deep into my skin. Others still were attached by string, one to another, and went all the way through one area of skin and into another part of my body, like tiny three-piece nunchucks. I was aghast. It dawned on me that he must have drugged me after (or during?) the bear hug and sent me off to be tortured. I was horrified, but also realized that if this is the treatment I got as a "friend," others must be suffering a much worse fate.
As I pulled them out little red wounds took their place. I thought perhaps I was scarred for life, doomed to look like I had chicken pox or measles. The more I pulled out, the more I discovered. Anne, who'd been out of her room for some time, returned and I begged her to help me. She did, but even with both of us pulling them out, it took an excruciatingly long time. I hadn't even gotten to the lower half of my body before waking up.
I could still feel the pain upon waking. As I felt around my body, though, there was nothing remotely like the sharp pain of the dream, only some dull muscle aches here and there from working out. Relieved, I got up went to the bathroom, then went back to sleep.
Odd, eh?
