by Anne Rice
ling. “O, it is worse for them, much worse,” Beauty thought, but her eyes and her mind were too filled with their exquisite endowments. She looked at the rounded buttocks of those made to kneel; she loved their polished chests, the lean muscularity of their limbs, and above all, perhaps, the nobility of suffering in their handsome faces. She thought of Prince Alexi again and she wanted to shower him with kisses. She wanted to kiss his eyelids and the nipples of his chest; she wanted to suckle his organ.
Now she saw a young Prince brought over on his hands and knees to suck the penis of another. And as he performed the act with great enthusiasm, he in turn was paddled by the Page who seemed, as all others, to take delight in inflicting torment. The Prince’s eyes were closed, he drew on the powerful sex of the other with long caresses of his lips, his own buttocks flinching with each blow, and as the poor Prince whom he suckled seemed on the edge of culminating passion, the suckler was pulled back by the Page who took his obedient slave to yet another erect penis.
“Here, as you can see, the young slave Princes are taught their manners,” Lord Gregory said, “to be ever in readiness for their masters and mistresses. A hard lesson to learn and one which you are, in general, spared. It is not that readiness isn’t required of you; it is that you are spared having to make such a display of it.”
He led her on closer to the female slaves who were being worked in a different manner. Here Beauty saw a lovely red-haired Princess with her legs held apart by two Pages who with their hands massaged that little nodule between her legs. Her hips rose and fell; it was clear she could not control her own movement. She begged to be allowed peace, and just as her face flushed and it seemed she could not control herself, she was let alone, legs held apart so that she groaned miserably.
Another very lovely girl was being spanked and stroked at the same time by a Page who used his left hand between her legs to work her.
And to Beauty’s horror several were mounted on phalluses against the wall on which they worked themselves with wild contortions while the Pages in attendance wielded merciless paddles.
“You see each slave receives simple instructions. She is to work herself on the phallus until she achieves satisfaction. Only then will the paddling cease, no matter how sore she is. She soon learns to think of the paddle and pleasure as one in the same, and she soon learns to achieve her pleasure in spite of the paddle. Or on command, I should say. Of course she shall seldom be allowed such satisfaction by her masters and mistresses.”
Beauty gazed at the row of struggling bodies. The girls’ hands were bound over their heads, their feet below. They had little room for moving on the leather phalluses. They twisted, trying to undulate as best they could, the inevitable tears spilling down their faces. Beauty felt pity for them, yet she so craved the phallus. She knew with deep shame it would not have taken her long to please the Page paddling her. As she watched the nearest Princess, a girl with red ringlets, she saw her finally achieve her goal, her face blood red, her whole body gone to violent quivering. The Page spanked her all the harder. She went limp finally as though too weary to feel shame, and the Page gave her a gentle approving pat and left her.
Everywhere Beauty looked she saw some form of training.
Here a young girl with hands clasped above her head was being taught to kneel still while her private parts were stroked and not to put her hands down to cover herself. Another was being forced to feed her breasts to the Page who suckled them, holding them for him while yet another examined her. Lessons in control, lessons in pain and pleasure.
The voices of the Pages were some of them stern, some of them tender, the dull whacking of the paddle everywhere. And there were the inevitable spread-eagled girls being now and then tormented to awaken them and teach them what they could feel if they did not know it.
“But for our little Beauty such lessons are not necessary,” Lord Gregory said. “She is too accomplished as it is. And perhaps she should see the Hall of Punishments, how those disobedient slaves are chastised using the very pleasure they have learned to feel here.”
THE HALL OF PUNISHMENTS
AT THE door of the new hall, Lord Gregory signaled one of the busy Pages.
“Bring Princess Lizetta here,” he said raising his voice slightly. “Sit back on your heels, Beauty, with your hands behind your neck and observe all that’s presented for your benefit.”
The unfortunate Princess Lizetta was apparently just being brought in, and Beauty saw at once that she was gagged but rather simply so. A small cylinder covered with leather and shaped like a dog’s bone was forced into her mouth and back so far between her teeth that it was rather like a bit, and apparently she could not have dislodged it with her tongue if she had wanted to.
She was crying angrily and kicking, as the Page who held her hands behind her back gestured for yet another Page to take her about the waist and carry her to Lord Gregory.
She was placed on her knees right before Beauty, her black hair falling down in front of her face, her dark breasts heaving.
“Petulance, my Lord,” said the Page rather wearily. “She was to be quarry in the Hunt in the Maze when she refused to give her Lords and Ladies good sport. The usual nonsense.”
Princess Lizetta tossed her black hair over her shoulder and let out a little contemptuous growl from behind the gag, which astonished Beauty.
“Ah, and impudence as well,” said Lord Gregory. He reached down and lifted her chin. Her dark eyes evinced nothing but anger as she looked up at him and she turned her head so sharply that she was soon free of him.
The Page gave her several hard spanks but she showed no contrition. Her little buttocks looked hard in fact.
“Double her, for punishment,” said Lord Gregory. “I think a real punishment is in order.”
Princess Lizetta gave several high-pitched groans. They seemed both anger and protest. She seemed not to have bargained for this, and as she was carried ahead of Beauty and Lord Gregory into the Hall of Punishments, the Pages quickly affixed leather cuffs to her wrists and ankles, each cuff with a heavy metal hook imbedded in it.
Now she was raised, struggling, to a great low beam that spanned the room, her wrists hung from a hook above her head and then her legs brought straight up in front of her so that her ankles were fixed to the same hook. She was, in fact, bent double. Her head was then forced between her calves, so that Beauty could see her face clearly. And a leather strap was bound around her, securely pressing her upturned legs against her torso.
But the most cruel and frightening aspect of it for Beauty was the exposure of the Princess’s secret parts, for she was hung so that anyone could see her full sex with its pink lips and its dark hair even to the tiny brown orifice between her buttocks. And all this just below her scarlet face. Beauty could imagine no worse exposure and she looked down timidly, glancing up again and again to the girl whose suspended body moved slightly as with a current in the air, the leather links at her wrists and ankles creaking.
But she was not alone. Beauty realized that only yards away, other doubled bodies hung from the same beam just as helplessly.
Princess Lizetta’s face remained colored with rage, but she had quieted somewhat and now she turned and tried to conceal her expression against her leg, but the Page nearby adjusted her face forward.
Quickly Beauty looked at the others.
Not very far to the right a young man was mounted in the very same fashion. He appeared very young, no more than sixteen at best, and he was blond with curly hair, and his pubic hair was slightly reddish. His organ was erect, its tip glossy, and there exposed to all the world was his scrotum and again the tiny opening of his anus.
There were more of them, another young Princess and another Prince, but these first two engaged Beauty completely.
The blond Prince was moaning painfully. His eyes were dry, but he appeared to struggle, to shift as he hung from the black leather manacles, and he caused his body to turn a little to the left as he did
so.
A young man, meantime, looking somewhat more impressive than the Pages, and differently costumed in dark blue velvet, came down the line of doubled and manacled slaves and appeared to inspect each face and each configuration of mercilessly exposed organs.
He smoothed back the hair from the young Prince’s forehead. The young Prince moaned. It seemed he tried to thrust himself forward, and this man in blue velvet stroked the Prince’s penis causing the Prince to moan all the louder and more with the sound of one imploring.
Beauty bent her head but she continued to watch the man in velvet as he approached the Princess Lizetta.
“Stubborn one, most difficult,” he said to Lord Gregory.
“A day and night of punishment will subdue her,” Lord Gregory answered. And Beauty was shocked to think of being exposed for so long, and so uncomfortably. She knew at once she would do anything to prevent this punishment, yet she had the terrible fear that despite all her efforts it might befall her. She at once imagined herself hung in this position, and she let out a little gasp, though she pressed her lips together to stop it.
But to her amazement, the man in velvet had begun to stroke Princess Lizetta’s sex with a small instrument that was, as so much here, covered in smooth black leather. This was a three-pronged rod that somewhat resembled a hand, and as soon as he teased the helpless Princess, she began to struggle in her bonds.
Beauty understood at once what was happening. The Princess’s pink sex, terrifying to Beauty as it hung so unprotected, appeared to swell, to ripen. Beauty could see tiny droplets of moisture appear on it.
And even as she watched, she felt her own sex ripening in this same manner. She felt the hard plaster that had been placed over the kernel of feeling there, and it seemed to do nothing to prevent the increased throbbing.
As soon as the helpless Princess had been so awakened, the man in velvet left her with an approving smile, and continued his movement back down the row of slaves, stopping again to tease and torment the young blond-haired Prince who without pride or dignity pleaded from behind his leather bone gag.
The victim beside him, another Princess, was even more abandoned in her wordless entreaties for satisfaction. Her sex was small, thick lipped, a mouth amid a thicket of brown curls, and she twisted her entire body struggling to gain some greater contact from the Lord in velvet who left her now to tease and torment yet another.
Lord Gregory snapped his fingers.
Beauty went down on her hands and knees again and followed him.
“Need I tell you that you are well-suited for that sort of punishment, Princess?” he asked.
“No, my Lord,” Beauty whispered. She wondered if it was within his power to punish her this way for nothing. She longed for the Prince, and for the time when he alone had power over her. She could think of nothing but the Prince, and why had she ever displeased him by looking at Prince Alexi? Yet she had only to think of Prince Alexi and she was pitched into helpless misery. But if she could be in the Prince’s arms, she would think of no one but him. She craved his tender punishment.
“Yes, my dear, you would speak?” Lord Gregory asked, but there was something ruthless in his tone.
“Only tell me how to obey, my Lord, how to please, how to avoid this discipline.”
“To begin with, my precious,” he said angrily, “stop admiring the male slaves so very much, staring at them at every opportunity. Don’t revel so much in all I show you to frighten you!”
Beauty gasped.
“And never, never again think of Prince Alexi.”
Beauty shook her head. “I will do as you say, my Lord,” she said anxiously.
“And remember, the Queen is none too pleased with her son’s passion for you. A thousand slaves have surrounded him ever since he was a young boy, and in none of them has he found an object of devotion such as you. The Queen does not like it.”
“O, but what can I do?” Beauty cried softly.
“You can show perfect obedience to all your superiors, and do nothing to make yourself seem rebellious or unusual.”
“Yes, my Lord,” Beauty said.
“You know that I saw you watching Prince Alexi last night,” he said, his voice now a menacing whisper.
Beauty winced. She bit her lip and tried not to cry.
“I could tell this to the Queen at any moment.”
“Yes, my Lord,” she gasped.
“But you are very young and lovely. And for such an offense as that you would face the most terrible punishment; you would be sent out of the castle to the village, and that would be more than you could bear ...”
Beauty trembled. “The village”—what could this mean? But Lord Gregory continued:
“And no slave of the Queen or the Crown Prince should ever be condemned to such disgraceful punishment, and no favorite slave ever has.” He took a deep breath as if to cool his anger. “And when you are properly trained, you shall be a splendid slave. And there is no reason finally why the Prince should not enjoy you, why everyone here should not enjoy you. I am here, therefore, to make something of you, not to see you destroyed.”
“You are most kind and gracious, my Lord,” Beauty whispered, but the words, the village, made their indelible impression. If only she might ask ...
But a young Lady had come into the room, passing through the door in a great rush, her long yellow hair in thick braids, her dress a rich burgundy color trimmed in ermine. Before Beauty remembered to look down, she caught a full glimpse of the Lady with her ruddy cheeks and large brown eyes which swept the Hall of Punishments now as if searching for someone.
“O, Lord Gregory, how nice to see you,” she said, and as Lord Gregory bowed, she curtsied gracefully. Beauty was stunned by her loveliness, and then overcome with her own shame and vulnerability. She stared at the Lady’s pretty silver slippers and the rings on the fingers of her right hand which gathered her skirts easily.
“And how may I serve you, Lady Juliana?” asked Lord Gregory. Beauty felt desolate. She was thankful the Lady never looked at her, and then again she felt abysmal. She was nothing to this woman who was dressed and a Lady and free to do all that she pleased, while Beauty was an abject naked slave who could do nothing but kneel before her.
“Ah, but there she is, that wicked Lizetta,” said the Lady, and the cheerfulness went out of her face as her lips quivered slightly. There were two little dots of color in her cheeks as she drew near the doubled Princess. “And she has been so spoilt and bad today.”
“Well, she is being severely punished for it, my Lady,” said Lord Gregory. “Thirty-six hours here should greatly improve her disposition.”
The Lady took several delicate steps forward and peered at Princess Lizetta’s exposed sex. And to Beauty’s amazement, Princess Lizetta did not try to hide her face but stared into the Lady’s eyes imploringly. She gave several imploring groans as clearly supplicating as the earlier moans of the Prince beside her. And as she writhed on her hook, her body rocked slightly forward.
“You’re a bad girl, you are,” whispered the Lady as though reproving a small child. “And you disappointed me. I had prepared the Hunt for the amusement of the Queen and chosen you specially.”
Princess Lizetta’s groans grew more insistent. She seemed now without hope or pride or anger. Her face was knotted and pink, and her gag looked most painful, her huge eyes flashing as they implored the Lady.
“Lord Gregory,” the Lady said, “you must think of something special.” Then to Beauty’s horror, the lady reached out delicately and fastidiously and pinched Princess Lizetta’s pubic lips hard so that they exuded moisture. Then she pinched the right lip and the left, and the girl winced with pain and misery.
Lord Gregory had meantime snapped his fingers for the Lord with the iron clawlike hand, and whispered something Beauty could not hear. “It will strengthen her punishment.”
And now the Lord appeared with a little pot and a brush and as the Lady stepped back, he took the brush and
bathed Princess Lizetta’s naked organ in a heavy syrup. A few droplets fell to the floor, and the Princess again made known her misery. She sobbed softly behind her gag, but the Lady only smiled rather innocently and shook her head. “It will attract any flies we have about,” Lord Gregory said, “and if we have none it shall produce its inevitable itching as it dries. It is quite uncomfortable.”
The Lady did not seem satisfied. Her pretty and innocent face was smooth however and she sighed. “I suppose it will do for now, but I wish she were bound with her legs apart to a stake in the garden. Then let the flies and the little insects of the air find her honeyed mouth. She deserves it.”
She turned to express her thanks to Lord Gregory, and again Beauty was struck by her bright ruddy face. Her braids were done with tiny pearls and thin strands of blue ribbon.
But Beauty, almost lost in her contemplation of all this, was suddenly shocked to realize the Lady was looking at her.
“Oooooh, yes, it is the Prince’s lovely one,” she said, and now she advanced, and Beauty felt the Lady’s hand lifting her face. “And how sweet she is, how truly beautiful.”
Beauty shut her eyes, trying to restrain her heaving breaths. She did not believe she could endure the imperious touch of this young Lady. And yet there was nothing she could do.
“O, I should so like to have her take Princess Lizetta’s place, it would be a treat for everyone,” said the Lady.
“But that is impossible, my Lady,” said Lord Gregory. “The Prince is most possessive of her. I cannot allow her to participate in such a spectacle.”
“But surely we’ll see more of her. Will she be run on the Bridle Path?”
“I feel certain, in time,” said Lord Gregory. “There is no accounting for the whim of the Prince. But here, you may examine her if you wish. There is no rule prohibiting it.”
He lifted Beauty by her wrists and forced her hips forward with the handle of the paddle. “Open your eyes and keep them down,” he whispered. Beauty could not bear to see this lovely Lady’s hands as they moved towards her. But Lady Juliana touched her breasts, and then her smooth stomach.