The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

by Anne Rice

  “I don’t know, I feel ashamed when I give in, I feel as if I have truly lost myself.”

  “Yes, that is it. But listen. We have the night here together. I want to tell you the story of how I came here and how I attained the path I speak of. When I am finished, if you still feel rebellious, I ask you to think on it. I shall go on loving you, no matter, and go on striving for moments to see you in secret. But if you listen to me, you shall see that you can conquer everything about you.

  “Don’t try to understand all that I say at once. Merely listen and see if the story in the end does not soothe you. Remember, you cannot possibly escape this place. No matter what you do the Court will find ways to wring amusement from you. Even a wild, teeth-gnashing slave can be bound and used in an abundance of different ways to amuse everyone. So accept this limit; and then try to understand your own limits and how you must broaden them.”

  “O, if I know you love me I can accept, I can accept anything.”

  “I do love you. But the Prince loves you, too. And even so, you must seek your path of acceptance.”

  He embraced her, then gently forcing his tongue between her lips, kissed her violently.

  He suckled her breasts until they were almost sore, as she arched her back moaning again, her passion rising. He lifted her under him and once again he drove his organ into her, turning her gently so they lay on their sides facing one another.

  “They shan’t rouse me tomorrow for anything and for that alone I’ll be punished.” He smiled. “But I do not care. It’s worth it, to have you, to hold you, and to be with you.”

  “But I can’t bear to think of you punished.”

  “Be comforted that I shall deserve it, and the Queen must be satisfied, and I belong to her, just as you belong to her and you belong to the Prince, and should he catch you he would have every right to punish me further.”

  “But how can I belong to him and to you?”

  “As easily as you might belong as well to the Queen and Lady Juliana. Did you not give Lady Juliana the rose? I wager that before the month is out, you will be mad to please Lady Juliana. You will dread her displeasure; you will hunger for her paddling just as you fear it.”

  Beauty turned her face away and buried it in the straw because it was already true. Tonight she had been glad to see Lady Juliana. And this was the way she felt about her Prince.

  “Now, listen to my story and you will understand more. It is not a neat explanation. But you will see something of a mystery unfolded.”

  PRINCE ALEXI TELLS OF HIS CAPTURE AND ENSLAVEMENT

  WHEN IT came time to send Tributes to the Queen,” Prince Alexi said, “I was not at all resigned to be chosen. There were other Princes who were brought forward to go with me, and we were told that our service with the Queen would last no more than five years at most, and that we would return greatly enhanced in wisdom, patience, self-control, and all virtues. Of course I had known others who had served, and though they are all forbidden to speak of what happens, I knew it was an ordeal and I cherished my freedom. So when my father told me I must go, I ran away from the castle and went roaming through the villages.

  “I don’t know how my father received this news. It was a party of the Queen’s soldiers who raided the village where I was and carried me off with a number of the common boys and girls for other forms of service. These were given to minor Lords and Ladies to serve in their own manor houses. Princes and Princesses such as we serve only at the Court, as I’m sure you realize.

  “It was a brilliantly sunny day. I was walking alone in a field south of the village writing poetry in my mind when I saw the Queen’s soldiers. I had my broadsword, of course, but I was at once surrounded by some six horsemen. As soon as I realized they meant to take me as a slave I knew they belonged to the Queen. They threw a net over me and quickly disarmed me. I was stripped on the spot, and thrown over the Captain’s saddle.

  “That alone was enough to infuriate me and make me fight for my freedom. You can imagine it, my ankles tied with coarse rope, my naked buttocks in the air, my head dangling. The Captain laid his hands on me often enough when he was idle. He pinched and prodded as suited him, and seemed to enjoy his advantages.”

  Beauty winced at all this. She could well picture it.

  “It was a long journey to the Queen’s Kingdom. I was handled roughly like so much baggage, bound at night to a pole outside the Captain’s tent and though no one was allowed to violate me, I was tormented by the soldiers. They would take reeds and sticks and prod my organs, touch my face, my arms and legs, whatever they could. My hands were tied over my head; I stood all that while, sleeping on my feet. The nights were warm enough but it was quite miserable.

  “However, all of this had a wisdom to it. I was promised to the Queen herself, by virtue of her treaty with my father. And of course I was eager to be rid of these coarse soldiers. Each day’s ride was the same, over the Captain’s saddle. He often whipped me with his leather gloves playfully. He let the villagers come near the road when we passed. He taunted me, and tousled my hair, and called me pet names. But he could not really use me.”

  “Were you thinking of escape?” Beauty asked.

  “Always,” said the Prince. “But I was in the midst of the soldiers at all times, and completely naked. Even had I managed to reach a villager’s cottage or a serfs hut, I would have been overpowered and returned for the ransom money. More humiliation and more degradation. I rode, bound hand and foot and ignominiously thrown over the horse, in a state of fury.

  “But finally we reached the castle. I was scrubbed, then oiled and brought before her Highness. She was coldly beautiful. This made its impression upon me at once. I had never seen such pretty eyes, yet such cold eyes. And when I refused to be silent or to obey, she laughed. She ordered me gagged with a leather bit. I’m sure you’ve seen it. Well, mine was bound in place so I couldn’t remove it. And then she had me shackled in leather so that I could not rise from my hands and knees. I could move as told, but not rise, the leather collar around my neck securely linked by leather chains to the leather cuffs on my wrists, and those to the cuffs on my legs above the knees. My ankles were linked so they couldn’t be spread very wide apart. It was all quite clever.

  “And then the Queen took her long lead—as she calls it—to drive me. It was a rod with a leather-encased phallus on the end of it. I shall never forget the first moment I felt it drive into my anus. She thrust it forward, and in spite of myself I moved ahead of her like an obedient pet as she commanded me. And when I lay down and refused to obey, she only laughed at this, and commenced her work with the paddle.

  “Well, I was fiercely rebellious. The more she paddled me, the more I growled and refused to obey. So she had me hung upside down and paddled on and off for hours. You can well imagine the misery of it. But understand, other slaves were looking at me in utter confusion. Being stripped, being cuffed, being ordered about with the paddle was quite enough to make them obey, coupled as it was with the knowledge that they could not escape and they must serve for several years, and they were helpless.

  “Yet nothing worked its magic with me. When I was taken down I was sore from the paddle on my buttocks and my legs, but I did not care. And all attempts to rouse my organ had failed. I was too stubborn.

  “Lord Gregory lectured me at length. The paddle was far easier to bear with an erect organ, he told me; with passion coursing through my veins, I should see the rhyme and reason of pleasing my mistress. I wouldn’t listen.

  “The Queen still found me amusing. She told me I was more beautiful than any other slave sent to her. She had me bound to the wall in her chambers night and day so that she might watch me. But more truly, it was so that I might watch her and desire her.

  “Well, at first, I did not look at her. But by and by I grew to studying her. I learned every detail of her, her cruel eyes, and her heavy black hair, her white breasts and her long legs, and the way that she lay abed or walked about, or ate her food so
daintily. Of course, she had me paddled regularly. And a strange thing commenced to happen. The paddlings were the only things that broke the boredom of this time, aside from watching her. So that watching her and being paddled became of interest to me.”

  “O, she is devilish!” Beauty gasped. She could understand all this perfectly.

  “Of course she is, and infinitely sure of her own beauty.

  “Well, all this while, she went about the business of the Court, coming and going. I was often alone with nothing to do but struggle, and curse behind the gag. Then she would return, a vision of soft tresses and red lips. My heart started to pound when she was undressed. I loved the moment when her mantle was released from its folds and I saw her hair. Then, when she was naked and stepping into her bath, I was beside myself.

  “All this was secret. I did my best to display nothing of it. I quieted my passion. But I am a man, so in a matter of days my passion commenced to build, to show itself. The Queen laughed at this. She tormented me. Then she would tell me how much less I would suffer if I were over her lap obediently accepting her paddle. This is the Queen’s favorite sport, the simple spanking over the lap, as you learned painfully enough tonight. She loves the intimacy of it. All her slaves are her children.”

  Beauty puzzled over this, but she didn’t want to interrupt Alexi, who went on.

  “As I told you, she would have me paddled. And always in a most uncomfortable and cold manner. She would send for Felix, whom I then despised ...”

  “You don’t now?” Beauty asked. But then with a flush she remembered the scene she had witnessed on the stairway, Felix suckling the Prince so tenderly.

  “I don’t despise him now at all,” Prince Alexi answered. “He is, of all the Pages, one of the more interesting. One comes to treasure that here. But in those days, I despised him as much as I did the Queen.

  “She would give the order for me to be spanked. He would have me removed from the shackles that held me to the wall, as I kicked and struggled frantically. Then I’d be thrown over his knee, my legs kicked wide apart, and the spanking would go on until the Queen was tired of it. It hurt very much as I’m sure you know, and it only further humiliated me. But as I became more and more desperately bored in my hours of solitude, I commenced to look upon it as an interlude. I began to think about the pain, the various stages of it. There were the first few cracks of the paddle, not so painful at all. Then, as they came on harder and harder, the aching, the stinging, I found myself wriggling and trying to escape the blows, though I’d sworn I wouldn’t. I’d remind myself to be still only to slip into writhing again, which amused the Queen immensely. When I was very sore, I felt very tired, tired of the struggle, and the Queen knew then I was most vulnerable. She would touch me. Her hands felt very delicious on my welts though I hated her. Then she’d stroke my organ, telling me in my ear what ecstasies I might enjoy in serving her. I would receive her full attention, she said, and be bathed and babied by the grooms, instead of roughly scrubbed and hung on the wall. I would weep sometimes because I couldn’t stop myself. The Pages would laugh. The Queen thought it all quite laughable, too. Then I would be returned to the wall to be broken down by more interminable boredom.

  “Now all this time, I never saw the other slaves punished by the Queen. She would carry out her pleasures and games in her many parlors. Sometimes I would hear cries and blows through the doors, but seldom.

  “But, as I began to exhibit an erect and craving organ in spite of myself, and began to actually look forward to the terrible spankings ... in spite of myself ... these two interludes not being connected as yet in my mind ... she brought in a slave now and then for her amusement.

  “I can’t tell you the rages of jealousy I felt the first time I had to witness a slave punished. This was a young Prince Gerald, whom she adored in those days. He was sixteen, and had the roundest, smallest buttocks. They were irresistible to the Pages, and the grooms, as yours are ...”

  Beauty blushed at this.

  “Don’t count yourself unlucky. Listen to what I say about the boredom,” Alexi said, and he kissed her tenderly.

  “As I was saying, this slave was brought in and the Queen stroked and teased him shamelessly. She placed him over her lap and proceeded to deliver a naked-handed spanking as she did to you, and I could see his erect penis, and how he tried to keep it away from her leg for fear he would spill his passion and displease her. He was utterly compliant and devoted to her. He had no dignity in his surrender at all, but scampered to obey her every command, his beautiful little face always flushed, his skin pink and white and full of blushes where he’d been punished. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I thought I can never be made to do these things. Never—I should die first. Yet I watched him, and I watched her punish him and prod him and kiss him.

  “And when he had pleased her well, how she rewarded him! She had brought in six Princes and Princesses from whom he must choose with whom he would couple. Of course his choices were to please her. He chose the Princes always.

  “And as she presided over him with the paddle, he would mount one of these who knelt for it obediently enough and, receiving the Queen’s blows, he would achieve ecstasy. It was a tantalizing spectacle. His own plump little buttocks being soundly spanked, the red-faced submissive slave on his knees to receive Prince Gerald, and the boy’s erect cock going in and out of the undefended anus. Sometimes the Queen spanked the little victim first, gave him a merry chase about the room, a chance to escape his fate if he could fetch a pair of slippers for her in his teeth before she could achieve ten good cracks of the paddle. The victim would scurry to obey. But seldom was he able to find the slippers and bring them to the proper place before the Queen had soundly paddled him. So he had to bend over for Prince Gerald, who was too well endowed for sixteen surely.

  “Of course I told myself all this was disgusting and beneath me. I should never play such games.” He laughed softly, and squeezed Beauty against his chest with his arm, kissing her forehead. “I’ve played them enough since,” he said.

  “But now and then, too, Prince Gerald did choose a Princess. This angered the Queen, though only slightly. She had the little girl victim perform some hopeless tasks in the hope of escape, the same game with the slippers, or the getting of a hand mirror or the like, all the while driving her mercilessly with the paddle. Then she would be thrown down on her back and taken by the lusty little Prince for the Queen’s amusement. Or she might be doubled and hung as in the Hall of Punishments.

  Beauty winced at this. To be taken in such a position hadn’t occurred to her. But a Princess would surely be ripe and open for it.

  “As you can imagine,” Alexi went on, “these spectacles became a torture. In my hours alone, I longed for them. As I watched, I could feel the blows on my buttocks as if I too were being spanked, and I felt my penis stir against my will at the sight of the little girls being chased, or even Prince Gerald being stroked and sometimes suckled by a Page for the Queen’s amusement.

  “I should add that Prince Gerald found this very hard. He was an anxious Prince, ever striving to please the Queen, and punishing himself in his own mind, dreadfully, for failure. He never seemed to realize that many of the tasks and games were deliberately made too difficult for him. The Queen would have him brush her hair with the brush fixed in his teeth. This is most difficult. And he would be weeping when he could not brush her hair in long enough strokes, nor thoroughly enough. Of course she was annoyed. She’d throw him over her lap, and with a leather-handled brush flail at him. He wept, full of shame and misery, and feared her worst wrath: that he be given over to others for pleasure and chastisement.”

  “Does she ever give you to others, Alexi?” Beauty asked.

  “When she’s displeased with me, she gives me to others,” he continued. “But I have surrendered and accepted this. It saddens me but I accept it. I am never in the frenzy in which Prince Gerald always found himself. He would beseech the Queen with silent kisses all o
ver her slippers. It was never any use. The more he pleaded, the more she punished him.”

  “What became of him?”

  “The time came for him to be sent back to his Kingdom. That time comes for all slaves. It will come for you, too, though when, no one can say, on account of the Prince’s passion for you, and that he awakened you and claimed you. Your Kingdom was a legend here,” said Prince Alexi.

  “But Prince Gerald went home richly rewarded and I think most relieved to be let go. He was of course beautifully dressed before he left, and received by the Court, and then we were assembled to see him ride out. It’s the custom. I think it was as humiliating for him as anything else. It was as if he remembered his nakedness and his subjugation. But other slaves suffer just as much when they are released for many reasons. Who knows, however. Maybe Prince Gerald’s endless worries saved him from something worse. It’s impossible to tell. Princess Lizetta is saved by her rebellion. It was interesting to Prince Gerald surely ...”

  Prince Alexi paused to kiss Beauty again and soothe her. “Don’t try to understand all I say just now. That is, don’t try to find immediate meaning in it,” he said. “Merely listen and learn and perhaps what I tell you shall save you some mistakes, give you different paths for the mind later. Ah, you are so tender to me, my secret flower.”

  He would have embraced her again, perhaps become carried away by his passion again, but she stopped him with a touch of her fingers to his lips.

  “But tell me, when you were shackled to the wall, what did you think of ... when you were alone, did you daydream, and what did you dream?”

  “What a strange question,” he said.

  Beauty seemed very serious. “Did you think of your former life, and wish you were free for this or that pleasure?”

  “Not really,” he said slowly. “I thought rather of what would happen to me next, I suppose. I don’t know. Why do you ask this?”