In the quaint village of Pievale, new gossip spreads like warm butter on toast: a mysterious artist had taken the old mill cottage by the brook. She called herself Cerise -- flame-haired, eyes like storm-clouds, a laugh that is half promise, half warning. Her paintings? Strange, unsettling works: men with boar tusks, donkey ears, the sly eyes of wolves. Yet the villagers flocked to see them, drawn like moths to her soft voice and intoxicating wine.
Among those enticed by the beauteous and strange, came forward the village's swaggering rooster. Collector of bedpost notches rather than art and ill-famed for his conquests and bravura, he felt an itch in his loins for fair Cerise to scratch. Arriving at her door one dusky evening, there Crispin stood: bottle of rough red in hand and shirt open at the chest in a grotesque display of manly virility. Cerise greeted him with a sweet smile and his ambitions swelled.

Inside, her studio smelt of oils and roses. A fire flickered. Paintings of half-men with half-beast forms fixed on Crispin with accusing eyes -- as though he were the type to care. Cerise fed her suitor roast chicken with honey glaze, pouring goblets of wine tasting richer than any tavern ale. Seated close, brushing Crispin's arm, she laughed at his ribald jokes about the silly village girls he had bedded and abandoned.
And when he leant forward in to kiss her, she let him. Her lips tasted of pomegranate. She sighed prettily as his hands roamed. Then her own hand cupped his cheek and with a voice soft as silk, she spoke thus:
"Such appetites, my swine. Now would you care to see how my appetites are fed?"
Before Crispin had time to gloat or grin, his skin crawled with sudden heat -- his limbs buckled, clothes ripped from his swelling hide. He squealed and squealed again -- pretentious words dissolving into oinks. Cerise stood up, aglow in moonlight pouring through the cottage window.

"Circe stands before you, my swine," she murmured, her true name dripping like poisoned nectar. Clicking her fingers, the floor beneath Crispin turned into rank slop: kitchen scraps, rotting fruit, cold gravy, and stale beer. Crispin wallowed helplessly, snout rooting in the filth he once thought beneath him.
Her laughter rang out as she kneeled and stroked his bristled back.

"You will root and wallow until you learn humility. Seven acts of penance shall you serve, each a tribute to the women you wronged. Fail, and this shall be your form until time ends."
With a gesture, she restored Crispin to human shape --though the slop still clung, dripping from his hair and down the rags of his shirt he knelt before the enchantress he so foolishly sought to conquer.
"Now," Circe whispered. "Tell me whose forgiveness you shall earn first and how you shall be humbled for her."