For Mike. Apologies for how heteronormative it is - and for how long it took, but it’s honest - so hopefully that counts for something?

I’m going to try to tell you about the Bluebeard but I’m afraid that my fingertips only reach so far. My heart beats as fast and hard as any man’s but my brain only wrinkles as much as it does.

I’m afraid the love story of Bluebeard is beyond me. I only know bits and pieces, most of it is conjecture and the wild lamentations of a madwoman.

But I will try, because I - in my own way - love and love as Bluebeard.

So. Allow some slight alterations, allow me to rework his veins and reform his skull until -

Before there was you or me, there was a Bluegirl.

She lived in a castle made of the darkest obsidian, nestled in a clearing in the densest forest of Provincetown. When the light shined on her castle it lit up in streaks of orange and purple and refracted gothic rainbows onto the trees.

The Bluegirl’s name was not Bluegirl, but something else, something more like - Jenny, Laura, Tina, something. But everyone called her Bluegirl because she had thick blue hair that radiated from her scalp like heatwaves. It terrified everyone who saw it.

The hair wasn’t real, not technically.

She wore the hair because it flattered her - it kept away the angry eyes of the villagers and the empty hands of the gold-diggers. The hair was made from spun sapphires and the softest silk of a very poisonous, very large spider. It was imported from a country with little natural resources and lots of giant arachnids.

Bluegirl wasn’t always such a loner, though. In fact, once upon a time she lived with a King in her stark black castle. He was a poet, a fierce lover, and a terrible man.

He wrote stanza upon stanza about how pretty she was, how consumed he was with her being. He spent every moment stalking her, following her around the castle grounds.

She still has the scars to remember him by, tiny burns from hot wax or his sharp tongue, slicing into her skin. He’d paint her portraits, so raw and haunting, and she’d cry, and he’d eat her tears for supper. 

This is what love is, thought Bluegirl. And when her King would storm around the castle, setting small fires and screaming, Bluegirl would tear out her hair and make tiny puppets from them. She’d perform little plays until she was all spent up, until she’d filled him up with everything she had. 

It still wasn’t enough.

Bluegirl got very sick. She got so sick that her hair fell out and her fingernails sharpened themselves into claws so whenever she touched herself she’d shred her skin into ribbons. Bluegirl knew she was being punished. She knew she’d angered her ancestor’s gods, those great and terrible warriors and protectors. She wasn’t good enough for her King, for her country.

She got sicker and sicker until the world was just a blinding swirl of pain and the sharp scent of pine trees. One morning the King came to find her in her rooms, came to wake her up. He demanded a puppet show. But Bluegirl couldn’t stand, couldn’t create a puppet, all her hair had fallen out.

He flew into a rage. He smashed her ancestral temple, he burned her love poems. Bluegirl crawled to the window and watched him set his fires and hurl his insults.

In the morning, he came to find her, to apologize. On his neck she recognized teeth marks, the kind you get from ladies-in-waiting.

She killed him. Right there on the spot.

And so it went, for a time.

A few springs later the counsel of Bluegirl’s country met and demanded a new King. They showed her all her options - and one, a Prince from a neighboring nation, was very appealing. He was so beautiful and charming, like from a storybook.

When he met Bluegirl he took her hands and whispered promises into her palms and she fell so hard she got a nosebleed from the sudden drop in altitude. He created music for her, played until his fingers bled, he was so passionate for her. He listened to her rambling, tedious treatises on the mandate of Bluegirl and stared at her with longing eyes. He said she was the smartest, most gracious Queen he’d ever known.

But. At night, he’d leave the castle. Do you have to go? she’d say, her voice tinged cerulean with sadness. Oh, my love, he promised, I will be back in the morning.

But you, he said, have such responsibilities. You should wait here. I’ll be back in the morning, safe and sound.

And so she’d watch him go, out to hunt or take ecstasy and roll so hard he’d come back dazed and grey in the morning.

We are so different, but he always comes back. This is what love is, thought Bluegirl.

One morning he didn’t come home. She frantically sent out messengers, wrote him desperate notes tied to carrier pigeons. I miss you! she’d write, then fling them into the sky.

And when he returned, eventually, smelling like sweat and oil and looking terribly guilty, she was relieved. I’m so sorry, he said. And on his neck she recognized teeth marks, the kind you get from ladies-in-waiting.

Bluegirl thought about her position for a very long time. She understood, really, what had happened. She’d been so sick, for so long, could she really expect something as beautiful and charming as her Prince to be content with her spindly hair and torn up skin?

Bluegirl knew she was unworthy. So she waited. She told folktales about sad Princesses and composed sweet sonnets about her love for the Prince.

But. One morning, the Prince came to find her.

I can’t stay, he said. I will be back. It was always you, baby, he said. But I have to see the world. I’m taking your lady, the one with the raven hair and bad attitude, and we’re going on an adventure. You stay here and protect the realm, and when I return we’ll both be happy again, and I will finally deserve you.

He kissed her cheek and left.

Bluegirl knew he was lying, knew she would never be happy again. She stopped eating and only slept. The counsel took her crown and she banished herself to the the west wing of the castle. She began to wear her blue wig, to wallow in self-pity.

As her last act as Queen, she forbade anyone from entering her wing of the castle. She locked herself away.

And so it went, for a time.

Eventually her skin healed until her arms and legs were striped with thick scars, like tree branches embedded in her skin. Whenever she bumped into things, especially other people, she would ache as if her entire body were bruised. She avoided touch like it might kill her. Or maybe that’s why she craved it.

She wore that wig and everyone forgot her real name. She became Bluegirl.

She lost her speech. She stopped eating the food the counsel left her, instead choosing to consume rats and their fleas.

She became a demon.