by Anne Rice
“You must turn around, Princess.”
“O, please, Captain,” she whispered.
“Don’t make a sound, Princess, I beg you. Our Lord is very strict,” he said. “And it’s his wish that everyone admire you.”
Beauty, her cheeks flaming, obeyed, turning so the crowd could see her reddened buttocks and then again to show her breasts and her sex as the Captain kept his finger under her chin lightly.
It seemed she breathed deeply as though trying to remain very calm. The young men were calling her beautiful and saying her breasts were magnificent.
“But such buttocks,” whispered an old woman nearby. “You can see that she’s been spanked. I doubt the poor Princess did anything much to deserve it.”
“Not much,” said a young man near her. “Except have the most beautiful and pertly shaped buttocks imaginable.”
Beauty was trembling.
Finally the Prince himself came out, ready to leave, and seeing the crowd as attentive as before, he himself took the rope down, and holding it like a short leash above Beauty’s head, he turned her. He seemed amused by the crowd’s grateful nods, and thanks, and bows to him; and very gracious in his generosity.
“Lift your chin, Beauty, I shouldn’t have to lift it,” he reproved her with a little deliberate frown of disappointment.
Beauty obeyed, her face so red that her eyebrows and eyelashes gleamed golden in the sun, and the Prince kissed her.
“Come here, old man,” the Prince said to the old Cobbler. “Have you ever seen such loveliness?”
“No, your Majesty,” said the old man. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows, and his legs were slightly bowed. His hair was gray but his green eyes gleamed with a special almost wistful pleasure. “She is truly a magnificent Princess, your Majesty, worth all the deaths of those who tried to claim her.”
“Yes, I suppose so, and worth all the bravery of the Prince who did claim her,” smiled the Prince.
Everyone laughed politely. But they couldn’t conceal their awe of him. They were staring at his armor, at his sword, and above all at his young face and dark black hair that fell to his shoulders.
The Prince drew the Cobbler closer. “Here,” he said, “I give you permission if you like just to feel her treasures.”
The old man smiled at the Prince gratefully and almost innocently. He reached out, and hesitating a moment, felt Beauty’s breasts. Beauty shivered, and tried obviously to repress a little cry.
The old man touched her sex.
Then the Prince drew up her little leash so she was standing on tiptoe; her body stiffened and seemed to grow more tense and at the same time more lovely, breasts and buttocks high, her calf muscles lifted, her chin and throat a perfect line down to her swaying bosom.
“That’s all. You must all go now,” said the Prince.
Obediently they backed away, but they continued to watch, as the Prince mounted his horse, and instructing Beauty to clasp her hands behind her neck, he ordered her to walk before him.
Beauty led the way out of the Inn yard, the Prince walking his horse behind her.
The people made way for her. They couldn’t take their eyes off her lovely vulnerable body, and they squeezed against the narrow walls of the town to follow the spectacle to the edge of the forest.
When they had left the town behind, the Prince told Beauty to come to him. He gathered her up and seated her before him again, and kissed her again, and scolded her:
“You found that so hard,” he crooned. “Why were you so proud? Did you think yourself too good to be shown to the people?”
“I’m sorry, my Prince,” she whispered.
“Don’t you see, if you think only of pleasing me, and pleasing those to whom I show you, it will be simple for you.” He kissed her ear, holding her tight to his chest. “You should have been proud of your breasts and your shapely hips. You should have asked yourself, ‘Am I pleasing my Prince? Do the people find me pleasing?’ ”
“Yes, my Prince,” Beauty said meekly.
“You are mine, Beauty,” the Prince said a little more sternly. “And there is no command that you must shrink from obeying ever. If I tell you to please the lowliest vassal in the field, you will strain to obey me perfectly. He is your Lord then because I have said so. All those to whom I offer you are your Lords.”
“Yes, my Prince,” she said, but she was in great distress. He stroked her breasts, pinching them firmly now and then, and kissed her until he could feel her body struggling against him, and feel her nipples growing hard. It seemed she wanted to speak.
“What is it, Beauty?”
“Pleasing you, my Prince, pleasing you ...” she whispered, as though her thoughts had spread into a delirium.
“Yes, pleasing me, that is your life now. How many of those in the world know such clarity, such simplicity? You please me and I shall always tell you exactly how to please me,”
“Yes, my Prince,” she sighed. But she was crying again.
“I will treasure you all the more for it. The girl I found in the castle room was nothing to me such as you are now, my devoted Princess.”
But the Prince was not entirely satisfied with the way in which he was instructing Beauty. He told her when they reached another town at nightfall that he was going to strip a little more dignity away from her to make it easier for her.
And while the townspeople pressed their faces to the leaded glass windows of the Inn, the Prince had Beauty wait on his table.
On her hands and knees she hurried across the rough boards of the Inn floor to fetch his plate from the kitchen. And though she was allowed to walk back with it, she was again on all fours to fetch his flagon. The soldiers devoured their supper, throwing silent glances at her by the light of the fire.
She wiped the table for the Prince and when a morsel of food spilled from his plate to the floor, he commanded Beauty to eat it. With tears spilling from her eyes, Beauty obeyed, and then he gathered her, still on her knees, into his arms and rewarded her with dozens of wet and loving kisses. Obediently she put her arms around his neck.
But this little morsel spilling had given him an idea. He ordered her to quickly fetch a plate from the kitchen again, and then told her to lay it on the floor at his feet.
He put food for her there from his plate, and told her to lift her heavy hair behind her shoulders and eat it only with her mouth.
“You are my kitten,” he laughed gaily. “And I would forbid you all those tears if they weren’t so beautiful. Do you want to please me?”
“Yes, my Prince,” she said.
With his foot he pushed her plate several paces away and told her to turn her buttocks to him as she continued her meal. He admired it, realizing the red marks from her spanking had almost healed. With the toe of his leather boot, he nudged at the silken hair he could see between her legs, felt the moist plump lips beneath the hair, and sighed, thinking her so very beautiful.
When she had finished her meal, with her lips she pushed the plate back to his chair as he ordered her to do it, and then he wiped her lips himself and fed her some wine from his cup.
He watched her long beautiful throat as she swallowed, and kissed her eyelids.
“Now listen to me, I want you to learn from this,” he said. “Everyone here can see you, all your charms, you’re aware of it. But I want you to be very aware of it. Behind you, the townspeople at the windows are admiring you as they did when I brought you through the town. This should make you proud of yourself, not vain, but proud, proud that you have pleased me, and caught their admiration.”
“Yes, my Prince,” she said when he paused.
“Now think, you are very naked and very helpless, and you are mine completely.”
“Yes, my Prince,” she cried softly.
“That is your life now, and you are to think of nothing else, and regret nothing else. I want that dignity peeled away from you as if it were so many skins of the onion. I don’t mean that you should ever be graceles
s. I mean that you should surrender to me.”
“Yes, my Prince,” she said.
The Prince looked up at the Innkeeper who stood at the kitchen door with his wife and his daughter. They came to attention at once. But the Prince looked only at the daughter. She was a young woman, very pretty in her own way, though nothing compared to Beauty. She had black hair and round cheeks, and a very tiny waist, and she dressed as many peasant women did, in a low-cut ruffled shirtwaist, and a short broad skirt that revealed her smart little ankles. She had an innocent face. She was watching Beauty in wonder, her big brown eyes moving anxiously to the Prince and then shyly back to Beauty who knelt at the Prince’s feet in the firelight.
“Now, as I told you,” the Prince said softly to Beauty, “all here admire you, and they enjoy you, the sight of you, your plump little rear, your lovely legs, those breasts which I cannot stop myself from kissing. But there is no one here, not the lowliest, who is not better than you, my Princess, if I command you to serve him.”
Beauty was frightened. She nodded quickly as she answered “Yes, my Prince,” and then very impulsively she bent and kissed the Prince’s boot, but then she appeared terrified.
“No, that is very good, my darling,” the Prince, stroking her neck, reassured her. “That is very good. If I allow you one gesture to speak your heart unbidden it is that one. You may always show me respect of your own accord in that manner.”
Again Beauty pressed her lips to the leather. But she was trembling.
“These townspeople hunger for you, hunger for more of your loveliness,” the Prince continued. “And I think they deserve a little taste of it that will delight them.”
Beauty kissed the Prince’s boot again, and let her lips rest there.
“O, don’t think I should really let them have their fill of your charms. O, no,” the Prince said thoughtfully.
“But I should use this opportunity, both to reward their devoted attention and teach you that punishment will come whenever I desire to give it. You need not be disobedient to merit it. I will punish when it pleases me. Sometimes that will be the only reason for it.”
Beauty couldn’t keep herself from whimpering.
The Prince smiled and beckoned to the Innkeeper’s daughter. But she was so frightened of him that she didn’t come forward until her father pushed her.
“My dear,” said the Prince gently. “In the kitchen, have you a flat wooden instrument, for shoveling the hot pans into the oven?”
There was a faint movement throughout the room as the soldiers glanced at one another. The people outside were pressing closer to the windows. The young girl nodded and quickly returned with a wooden paddle, very flat and smooth from years of use, with a good handle.
“Excellent,” said the Prince.
But Beauty was crying helplessly.
The Prince quickly ordered the Innkeeper’s daughter to seat herself on the edge of the high hearth which was the height of a chair, and told Beauty, on her hands and knees, to go to her.
“My dear,” he said to the Innkeeper’s daughter, “these good people deserve a little spectacle. Their life is hard and barren. My men deserve it as well. And my Princess can well use the chastisement.”
Beauty knelt crying before the girl who, seeing what she was to do, was fascinated.
“Up over her lap, Beauty,” said the Prince, “hands behind your neck, and lift your lovely hair out of the way. At once!” he said, almost sharply.
Pricked by his voice, Beauty almost scurried to obey, and all those around her saw her tear-stained face.
“Keep your chin up like that, yes, lovely. Now, my dear,” said the Prince looking at the girl who held Beauty over her lap and the wooden paddle in her other hand. “I want to see if you can wield that as hard as a man might wield it. Do you think you can do that?”
He could not keep from smiling at the girl’s delight and desire to please. She nodded murmuring a respectful reply, and when he gave her the command, she brought the paddle down hard on Beauty’s naked buttocks. Beauty couldn’t keep still. She struggled to keep quiet, but she couldn’t keep still, and finally even the whimpers and moans escaped her.
The tavern girl spanked her harder and harder, and the Prince enjoyed this, savoring it far more than the spanking he had given Beauty himself.
It was because he could see it much better, see Beauty’s breasts heaving, and the tears spilling down her face, and her little buttocks straining, as if, without moving, Beauty might somehow escape or deflect the girl’s hard blows.
Finally, when the buttocks were very red but not welted, he told the girl to stop.
He could see his soldiers enthralled and all the townspeople as well, and then he snapped his fingers and told Beauty to come to him.
“Now eat your suppers, all of you, talk amongst yourselves, do as you like,” he said quickly.
For a moment no one obeyed him. Then the soldiers turned to one another, and those outside, seeing that Beauty was retired down to kneeling at the Prince’s feet, her hair veiling her red face, her raw and stinging buttocks pressed to her ankles, were murmuring and talking at the windows.
The Prince gave Beauty another drink of wine. He was not sure he was entirely satisfied with her. He was thinking of many things.
He called the Innkeeper’s daughter to him and told her she had been very good, gave her a gold coin, and took the paddle from her.
Finally it was time to go up. And driving Beauty before him, he gave her a few gentle but brisk spanks to hurry her up the stairs to the bedchamber.
BEAUTY
BEAUTY STOOD at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped to her neck, her buttocks throbbing with a warm pain that felt so much better now than the spanking she had lately received that it was almost pleasure.
She had for the moment stopped crying. She had only just pulled down the covers for the Prince, with her teeth, her hands clasped behind her back, and then with her teeth taken his boots to the edge of the room.
And now she waited for further commands, trying to watch him, though her eyes were cast down, without his realizing it.
He had bolted the door, and he was sitting on the side of the bed.
And his black hair, loose and curling at his shoulders gleamed in the light of the tallow candle. His face was very beautiful to her, perhaps because in spite of the size of the features, they were all rather delicately molded. She did not know for certain.
Even his hands enthralled her. The fingers were so long, so white, so delicate.
She was terribly relieved to be alone with him. The moments below in the Inn had been such an agony to her, and even though he had brought the wooden paddle with him and might spank her much harder with it than that dreadful girl, she was so glad to be alone with him that she could not be afraid of it. She was afraid, however, that she hadn’t pleased him.
She searched her mind for faults. She had obeyed all his commands, and he understood how difficult it was for her. He knew completely what it meant for her to be stripped naked and revealed to everyone, to be helpless and made public and that this surrender of which he spoke could come in acts and gestures long before it could come from her mind. But no matter how hard she tried to excuse herself, she could not help but wondering if she could have tried harder.
Did he want her to cry out more when she was spanked? She was uncertain. Just thinking of that girl spanking her in front of everyone made her cry again, and she knew that the Prince would see her tears, and he might wonder why now, when she’d been told to stand still at the foot of the bed, she was crying.
But the Prince seemed deep in thought.
This is my life, she told herself, trying to calm herself. He has awakened me and claimed me. My parents are restored, their Kingdom is theirs again, and more significantly, life is theirs again, and I belong to him. She felt a great relaxation when she thought these things and a stirring in herself that seemed to make her sore and throbbing buttocks feel suddenly warmer. The pain m
ade her so shamefully aware of that part of her body! But then as she squeezed her eyes against these soft and slow tears, she looked down at her swelling breasts and the tiny hard nipples and felt that same awareness of herself there too, just as if he’d slapped her breasts which he hadn’t done in a great while, and she felt softly bewildered.
My life, she struggled to understand. And she remembered that in the afternoon in the warm forest when she had been walking before his horse, she had felt her own long hair on her buttocks, brushing them as she walked ahead of him, and she had wondered if she looked beautiful to him, and she had wished that he would pick her up then, and kiss her and caress her. Of course she had not dared to look back. She couldn’t imagine what he would have done had she been so foolish as to do that, but the sun had thrown their shadows ahead of them and she had seen the shadow of his profile, and felt such a pleasure that she was ashamed of it, and her legs had felt weak and there had been the oddest feeling in her, something she had never known in her earlier life, though perhaps in her dreams.
She was awakened now, at the foot of his bed, by his low but firm command.
“Come here, my darling.” He motioned for her to kneel before him.
“This shirt is to be opened down the front, and you will learn to do so with your lips and teeth, and I will be patient with you,” he said.
She had thought it would be the paddle. And, very relieved, she went almost too quickly to obey, pulling the thick tie that closed the shirt at his throat. His flesh felt warm and smooth to her. Men’s flesh. So different, she thought. And she quickly pulled loose the second tie and the third. She had a struggle with the fourth which was at his waist, but he didn’t move, and then when she was finished, she bowed her head, her hands as before on the back of her neck and waited.
“Open my breeches,” he said to her.
Her cheeks flamed; she could feel it. But again she didn’t hesitate. She pulled the fabric forward over the hook until the hook slipped out and let it go. And now she could see his sex, bulging there, painfully twisted. She wanted suddenly to kiss it, but she didn’t dare and was shocked at her impulse.