Beauty's Punishment

by Anne Rice

  The sight riveted her even more strongly than it had the night before, from this new perspective. She watched the slow progression of the cart and looked at the odd expression on the Prince’s face, so devoid of panic. The roaring of the crowd was as bad as it had been at the auction. And as the cart turned round the well and back towards the Sign of the Inn now, Beauty saw the victim fully from the front and she winced at the welts and bands of reddened flesh that covered the insides of his legs, his chest, and his belly. Two whippings more he’d had and a third promised.

  But an even more disturbing sight absorbed her as she realized that one of the six slaves harnessed to the cart was Tristan. He was passing directly beneath her again, and it was Tristan without mistake, his thick golden hair shimmering in the sun, his head pulled back by the bit in his mouth, his knees rising sharply. And streaming out from the cleft of his handsomely shaped rump was a sleek black horsetail. No one had to tell her what held it in place. It was the phallus inside him.

  Beauty covered her face with her hands, but she felt the familiar secretion between her legs, the first clarion of the day’s torments and raptures.

  “Don’t be so foolish,” said Prince Roger. “The runaway Prince deserves it. Besides, his punishment hasn’t even begun. The Queen has refused to see him and has sentenced him to four years in the village.”

  Beauty was thinking of Tristan. She felt his cock inside her. And she felt a mad fascination in seeing him trussed and pulling the cart, and seeing that appalling tail dangling behind him. It confused her and made her feel she had betrayed him.

  “Well, maybe that is what the runaway wanted,” Beauty sighed, speaking of Laurent. “He was contrite enough last night, however.”

  “Or maybe it’s what he thinks he wanted,” said Roger. “He has the turntable now to suffer, then round through the village again, and the turntable again, before he’s handed over to the Captain.”

  The procession circled the well another time, the drum causing Beauty’s nerves almost to snap. Again she saw Tristan, marching almost proudly at the head of the team, and the sight of his genitals, and the weights hung on his nipples, and his beautiful face pulled up by the leather bit caused a little torrent of passion inside her.

  “Normally the soldiers march fore and aft,” Prince Roger said as he picked up his broom again. “I wonder where they are today.”

  “Looking for mysterious raiders,” she thought, but she didn’t say it. Now that she had her chance alone with Roger to ask about these things, she was too enthralled by the procession.

  “You’re to go on down to the yard and rest on the grass,” said the Prince.

  “Rest again?”

  “The Captain won’t have you worked today. And tonight, he’s hiring you out to Nicolas, the Queen’s Chronicler.”

  “Tristan’s Master!” Beauty whispered. “He’s asked for me?”

  “Paid for you in good coin of the realm,” said Roger. He went on with his sweeping. “Go ahead down,” he said to her.

  And her heart pounding, she watched the procession move slowly into the broad lane that led back to the other end of the village.

  TRISTAN AND BEAUTY

  SHE COULDN’T wait until dark.

  The hours dragged as she was bathed, combed, and oiled roughly but as thoroughly as she had ever been at the castle. Of course she might not see Tristan tonight. But she was going to the place where Tristan lodged! She could not quiet herself.

  Finally darkness descended on the village.

  And Prince Richard, “the good little boy,” she thought, with a smile, was ordered to take her to Nicolas, the Chronicler.

  The Inn was strangely empty, though all else in the deepening twilight seemed regular. Lights flickered in the pretty little windows along the narrow lanes; the spring air was fragrant and sweet. Prince Richard let her march fairly slowly, only now and then telling her to show a little more spirit, or they both would be whipped. He walked behind her with the strap, only occasionally licking her.

  She could see wives and husbands at table through low windows, naked slaves rising from their knees in quick darting motions to set plates or pitchers before them. Slaves bound to the walls moaned and pumped vainly.

  “But something is different,” she said as they came into a broader street, full of fine houses, almost every iron bracket with its manacled slave hanging beside the door, some tightly bound and gagged, others in quiet obedience.

  “No soldiers,” Richard said under his breath. “And please be quiet. You’re not supposed to talk. We’ll both finish at the Punishment Shop.”

  “But where are they?” Beauty asked.

  “Do you want a licking?” he threatened. “They’re all out searching the coast and the forest for some imagined raiding party. I don’t know what it means, but don’t breathe a word. It’s a secret.”

  But they had come to Nicolas’s door. Richard was leaving her. A maid greeted Beauty and ordered her down on her hands and knees. And in a frenzy of anticipation, Beauty was led right through a fine little house and down a narrow side corridor.

  A door was opened for her, and the maid bid her go in and closed the door behind her.

  Beauty could scarcely believe her eyes when she looked up and saw Tristan before her. He reached out with both hands and lifted her to her feet. Beside him stood the tall figure of his Master, Nicolas, whom Beauty remembered well enough from the auction.

  Her face was crimson when she looked at the man, because both she and Tristan were standing and embracing each other.

  “Calm yourself, Princess,” he said in an almost caressing voice. “You may remain as long as you like with my slave, and in this room you are free to be with each other as you please. You will return to your regular servitude when you leave me.”

  “0, my Lord,” Beauty whispered, and dropped to her knees to kiss his boots.

  He allowed this courtesy, and then left them both. And Beauty rose and flew into Tristan’s arms, Tristan’s mouth opening to devour her kisses ravenously.

  “Sweet little one, beautiful little one,” Tristan said, his lips feeding upon her throat and her face, his organ pushing against her naked belly.

  His body seemed almost polished in the dim light of the candles, his golden hair lustrous. She looked up into those beautiful violet-blue eyes and rose on tiptoe to mount him as she had done in the slave cart.

  She threw her arms around his neck and forced her dilated sex onto his cock, feeling him seal himself against her. Slowly, he sank back on the green satin coverlet of a little oak-paneled bed. And stretching out on the pillows, he threw back his head as she rode him.

  His hands lifted her breasts, pinched her nipples, and held them throbbing as she bucked and reared on his sex, sliding up as high as she could without losing the shaft and plummeting down, her lips dipping to kiss him.

  Tristan’s face went dark with his groans, and as she felt the cock erupt under her, she came, bucking still, until she was transfixed, her legs outstretched, shimmering with the last shocks of the pleasure.

  They lay together arm in arm and slowly he wiped her hair back from her head, whispering, “My darling Beauty,” as he kissed her.

  “Tristan, why is your Master letting us do this?” she asked. But she was in a sweet drowsy state and she did not really care. Candles burned on the little table beside the bed. She saw the light swell and obliterate the objects of the room except for the golden surface of a large mirror.

  “He’s a man of mysteries and secrets and strange intensity,” Tristan said. “He will do exactly as he pleases. And it pleases him to let me see you, and it will please him tomorrow probably to have me whipped through the village. And very possibly he thinks that the one will enhance the torment of the other.”

  The remembrance of Tristan, harnessed and horse-tailed, came back to Beauty unbidden. “I saw you,” she whispered flushing suddenly. “In the procession.”

  “Did it seem so terrible?” he whispered comforti
ngly, kissing her. There was a faint blush on his cheeks that in a face so strong was irresistible.

  She was amazed. “You didn’t find it terrible?” she asked.

  A low laugh came from deep in his chest. She pulled the golden hair that curled up from around his cock to his belly.

  “Yes, my darling,” he said, “it was deliciously terrible!”

  She laughed as she looked into his eyes, and she kissed him again greedily. She snuggled down, kissing and biting at his nipples. “It tantalized me to see it,” she confessed, her voice throaty and not her own. “I only prayed you were somehow resigned ...”

  “I am more than resigned, my love,” he said, kissing the top of her head as he lay back under her affectionate bites. She mounted his left thigh and pressed her sex against it. He gasped as she bit at his nipple, pinching the other in time with her little bites. And then he tumbled her down on the sheets and opened her mouth again with his tongue.

  “But tell me,” she insisted, stopping his kiss for a moment, his organ grazing her mound, pressing the tight curling hair against its grain gently. “You must,” she dropped her voice to a whisper. “How could you ... ? The harnesses and the bit, and that horsetail ... How have you come to this, this acceptance?” She didn’t need him to tell her he was resigned. She could see it and feel it, and she had seen it today in the procession. But she remembered him in the cart when they had come down from the castle, and she had felt the fear in him then that he was too proud to reveal freely.

  “I’ve found my Master,” he said, “the one who brings me into harmony with all punishments,” Tristan said. “But if you must know,” he started kissing her again, his organ opening her nether lips and pushing at her clitoris. “It was, and will always be, utter mortification.”

  Beauty lifted her hips to receive him. They were at once rocking in unison, Tristan gazing down at her, his arms like pillars supporting his powerful shoulders above her. She lifted her head to suck from his nipples, her hands pinching and parting his buttocks, feeling the hard delicious knots of the welts and measuring them and compressing them as she drew closer to the silky wrinkled lip of his anus. His motions grew swifter, rougher, more agitated as she delved. And suddenly reaching to the table beside her, she pulled one of the thick waxen candles from its silver holder, whipping out the flame and pressing the melted tip with her fingers. And then she plunged it into him, planting it firmly inside. His eyes squeezed shut. Her own sex became a taut sheath against his organ, her clitoris toughening, exploding. And cranking the waxen candle hard she cried out, feeling his hot fluids empty into her.

  They lay still, the candle discarded. And she wondered at what she had done, but Tristan only kissed her.

  He rose, poured a goblet of wine, and put it to Beauty’s lips. Puzzled, she took it, drank it as a Lady might and wondered at the curious sensation.

  “But how have you fared, Beauty?” he asked. “Have you been rebellious all the time? Tell me.”

  She shook her head. “I fell into the hands of a hard and wicked Master and Mistress.” She laughed softly.

  She described the punishments of Mistress Lockley, the kitchen, the Captain’s way with her, and her evenings with the soldiers, lingering on the physical beauty of both her captors.

  Tristan listened gravely.

  She told about the runaway, Prince Laurent. “I know now that if I run away it will be in order to be found, to be punished like that, to spend all my years in the village,” she said. “Tristan, do you think me dreadful to want to do that? I would run away rather than go back to the castle.”

  “But you might be taken from the Captain and Mistress Lockley,” he said, “if you ran away, and sold to someone else for harder use and labor.”

  “That doesn’t matter,” she said. “It isn’t the Mistress or Master really who puts me in harmony with it, as you said. It’s merely the hardness, the coldness, and the relentlessness. I wanted to be cast down, lost among my punishments. I adore the Captain and I adore the Mistress, but there are other harsher Masters and Mistresses probably in the village.”

  “Ah, you surprise me,” he said, offering her the wine again. “I am so totally in love with Nicolas I have no defense against him.”

  Tristan then explained the things that had happened to him, and how he and Nicolas had made love and talked together, and gone out up onto the hillside.

  “The second time on the Public Turntable, today at noon,” he said. “I was transported. The fear hadn’t left me. It was worse when I was rushed up the steps, because I knew just what would happen. But I saw the whole fairgrounds more clearly under the glare of the sun than I had ever seen it by torchlight. I do not mean I saw literal things. I saw the great scheme of which I was part, and under the grueling punishment, my soul broke open. My whole existence now, be it on the turntable or in the harnesses, or in my Master’s arms, is an entreaty to be used like the warmth of a fire is used, to be dissolved in the will of others. My Master’s will is the guiding will, and through him I am given to all who witness or desire me.”

  Beauty was quiet, gazing at him.

  “Then you have given over your soul,” she said. “You’ve given it to your Master. That I haven’t done, Tristan. My soul is still mine and the only thing a slave can truly possess. And I’m not ready yet to give it. I give my whole body to the Captain, to the soldiers, to Mistress Lockley. But in my soul, I think I belong to no one. I left the castle, not to find the love I had not found there. I left to be tossed and tumbled among harsher and more indifferent Masters.”

  “And you are indifferent to them?” he asked.

  “I am as interested in them as they are in me,” she said, reflecting. “No more, no less. But my soul may change in time. Perhaps it’s only that I have met no Nicolas, the Chronicler.”

  She thought of the Crown Prince. She had not loved him. He made her smile. Lady Juliana had affrighted her and disturbed her. The Captain thrilled her, exhausted her, surprised her. Mistress Lockley she secretly liked, for all the dread of her. But that was the extremity of it. She didn’t love them. That, and the glory and excitement of belonging to a grand scheme, to use Tristan’s word, was the village to her.

  “We are two different slaves,” she said as she sat up, taking the wine and drinking deeply. “And we are both happy.”

  “I wish I understood you!” he whispered. “Don’t you long to be loved, don’t you long to have the pain mingled with tenderness?”

  “You don’t have to understand me, my love. And there is tenderness.” But she paused, imagining the intimacy that existed between Tristan and Nicolas.

  “My Master will guide me to greater and greater revelations,” Tristan said.

  “And my destiny,” she answered, “will also have its momentum. When I saw poor, punished Prince Laurent today, I envied him. And he had no loving Master to guide him.”

  Tristan sucked in his breath, gazing up at her. “You are a magnificent slave,” he said. “Perhaps you know more than I do.”

  “No, I am a simpler slave in some ways. Your destiny is mingled with greater renunciation of self.” She leaned on her elbow and kissed him. His lips were dark red from the wine, and his eyes seemed unusually large and glassy. Gorgeous he was. Mad thoughts came to her, of tethering him in the harnesses herself and ...

  “We must not lose each other. Whatever happens,” he said. “Let’s take our stolen moments whenever we can to confide in each other. We may not always be allowed ...”

  “With a Master as mad as yours we might have plenty of opportunity,” she said.

  He smiled. But his gaze was broken suddenly, as if by some distracting thought, and he lay still listening.

  “What is it?”

  “There is no one on the road outside,” he said. “It’s absolutely silent. And there are always coaches on the road at this hour.”

  “All the gates are closed,” she said. “And the soldiers are all gone.”

  “But why?”

&n
bsp; “I don’t know, much whispering of searching the coast for raiders.”

  He looked so beautiful to her now, and she wanted to make love again. She drew up on the bed, sitting back on her heels, and looked at his organ, which was already springing to life once more, and then she glanced at her own reflection in the far mirror. She loved the sight of the two of them in the mirror together. But even as she looked she saw another ghostly figure in the mirror. She saw a man with white hair, his arms folded, watching her!

  She let out a shriek. Tristan sat up and stared forward. But she had already realized what it was. The mirror was a two-way mirror, one of those ancient tricks of which she’d heard tell as a child. And Tristan’s Master had all the while been watching. His dark face was amazingly clear, his white hair almost glowing, his brows knotted seriously.

  Tristan half smiled and flushed. And a strange sense of exposure softened Beauty.

  But the Master had vanished from the murky glass. The door of the room opened.

  He drew near the bed, the elegant man in velvet and balloon sleeves, and he turned Beauty’s shoulders towards him. “Repeat this to me, all you’ve heard about the soldiers and these raiders.”

  Beauty flushed. “Please don’t tell the Captain!” she begged. He nodded, and at once she told what she knew of the story.

  For a moment, the Master stood still, thinking.

  “Come,” he said and drew Beauty up from the bed, “I must take Beauty back to the Inn immediately.”

  “May I go, please, Master?” Tristan asked.

  But Master Nicolas was distracted. He didn’t seem to hear the question.

  He turned and beckoned for them to follow. They walked quickly down the corridor and out the back door of the house, and Master Nicolas motioned for them to wait as he walked out towards the battlements.

  For a long moment he looked from one end of the great wall to the other. The stillness commenced to unnerve Beauty.

  “But this is foolish,” he whispered as he returned. “They seem to have left the village too little defended.”