Serena caught my eye. “As expected,” she said.

“You of all people should know how foolish this is,” he said.

“You of all people should know I’m not foolish,” she said. “Come to my tent tonight.”

He finally looked at her, the smile gone. “You know I can’t do that,” he said.

Serena took a few steps forward, until her face was inches from the wire. Luke came to meet her. She raised her hand again, and without hesitation, pressed it full and flat against the electric fence. Nothing happened. They stood there for what seemed like minutes, looking at each other, their bodies almost touching through the wires. I thought of Houdini’s wife at the Hippodrome, passing him the key to his restraints with a passionate kiss. It had been hidden beneath her tongue: a perfect place for a little key. Kisses, as you know, are often keys. They have been known to unlock sleeping damsels. They are adept at breaking curses. By their very nature they open mouths, and also arms, and often legs. Of course, kisses can also be locks: sealed with a kiss, kiss the bride, the kiss of death, kiss the gunner’s daughter.

But it seems important to say, here, that Sleeping Beauty was never really woken by a kiss. In the original version of the story, published in 1634 by Giambattista Basile, after SB (here named Talia) pricks her finger and falls into stillness, her father, thinking her dead, leaves her body to rot, splayed uncovered on a velvet bier in one of his country mansions. It is there that another king on a hunting trip eventually stumbles across her. For some reason, he understands that she is asleep, not dead. (For the disparity in the two kings’ comprehension there is no explanation.) He tries to wake this beautiful maiden, calling out to her, but she will not wake. So he rapes her, and then he leaves.

(The translation I have read puts it this way: “Crying aloud, he beheld her charms and felt his blood course hotly through his veins. He lifted her in his arms, and carried her to a bed, where he gathered the first fruits of love. Leaving her on the bed, he returned to his own kingdom, where, in the pressing business of his realm, he for a time thought no more about this incident.”)

Nine months later,Talia delivers twins (apparently a couple of fairies appear to cut the cord and, I don’t know, tip ice chips into her unconscious mouth) but does not wake until her daughter, rooting around for a nipple, finds the pink tip of her mother’s lifeless finger and, voila, sucks out the offending flax splinter. Later, the rapist king shows up for another round, and finds a little family, all three awake. On the one hand, he is overjoyed.