Beauty's Kingdom

by Anne Rice

  “Come now, poor little piglet,” he said to the slave boy who had been waiting his turn all this while—first on the ramp.

  Oh, is there no end to beauty here, I thought.

  “Piglet” was the word often used in the village for a male slave, just as “partridge” was for a female, and this young man was a plump pink piglet indeed, with deliciously shaped hindquarters and an exquisite face. He made his way on hands and knees with a very straight back and graceful fingers up onto the platform and then knelt up for the whipping master to take the dreaded red leather tag from his neck, which was tossed in a gilded basket to the man’s far right.

  “Such an expression,” said Alexi. “What is he, do you think, twenty?”

  “Maybe,” I said, “and like a young god.”

  The boy had a marvelously well-proportioned face with a narrow nose and large sensuous inviting lips. His chin was strong, and so were his shoulders, and his hair fell down on his shoulders, rather like that of Prince Richard, but it was pale yellow, perhaps much bleached by the summer sun.

  He glanced timidly at the whipping master with gray eyes, but there was no cowardice in him.

  “Now, what have you done, young Valentine,” said the whipping master, affectionately smoothing the boy’s hair. “Come now, youngling, tell the truth, why has your master sent you here again today?”

  Suddenly tears sprang to the boy’s eyes. He kept his hands beneath his hair and clamped on his neck but his chest heaved.

  “He is put out with me, sir,” he said under his breath, but I could easily hear him. “No matter what I do my hands shake. I spilt his ink. I dropped the bottle.”

  “Well, you’ll get over that, poor little brat,” said the whipping master, smiling. “You’ll soon learn not to fumble at all.” He patted the boy again gently, first on his head and then on his backside. He kissed the boy’s cheek. “Now you know I’m going to give you a sound spanking, don’t you?” he said. “And that’s going to help you to be a good boy. Spanking softens the soul.”

  He hugged and kissed the boy again and then with his left hand pulled him forward by the hair until the boy lay over his lap.

  “Now you keep the cock well behaved, little fellow,” he said, “or I’ll be spanking you all evening, you know that, don’t you?”

  “Yes, sir,” the boy said. And only now were the tears gathering. The “over the knee” position almost always brought tears, tears even from the most proud and mocking.

  The whipping master drew on a yellow leather glove and picked up a glob of fresh cream and worked this into the boy’s hindquarters, lovingly massaging his thighs.

  “Such pretty plump legs, muscular yet soft,” he crooned to the boy. “I have to confess, Valentine, paddling you is always a pleasure. Oh, I know you’re going to be bawling in a minute, but you’re such a little pork pie, so ripe, so pretty. Now you be a good boy, and you think on your faults with every smack!”

  “Yes, sir,” said the boy again.

  I glanced at Prince Richard, so far away, sitting against the ramp. His eyes were fixed on the boy. Ink. The matter of ink put me in mind of that scholar who used to chat with me when I was a Herm against the wall.

  “Now, you pick up those balls of yours,” said the whipping master, “and you hold them up to your cock and you keep that cock up off my apron, little fellow, understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” said the boy yet again.

  “You see what I mean?” said Alex. “You hear how he talks to them?”

  “Well, the guiding genius over there must approve of it,” I said. It was igniting my blood, the tone of his voice, its appeal to utter dependency in the slave.

  “Oh, yes, or he would be replaced!” said Alexi. “And he and Eva are developing names for these types of whipping masters and all masters and mistresses and grooms—scolding mistresses, angry masters, comforting masters, cross mistresses, and so on—and by the way, the smallest of the Punishment Shops has whipping mistresses only and some of them are a spectacle indeed.”

  The whipping master patted the boy tenderly all over his gleaming bottom and thighs, then stripped off the glove and picked up the inevitable gold paddle which had a pair of pretty blue ribbons streaming from its tooled handle.

  “Now who’s going to be the best possible little boy for me, hmm?” he asked.

  “I am, sir,” said Valentine.

  “And who’s going to go back to his master and try very hard to please?”

  “I am, sir,” came the inevitable reply.

  Down came the paddle with such a riff of blows I was amazed. I drew back, glancing in surprise at Alexi.

  The boy got fifteen to twenty spanks within seconds and they were hard. And they didn’t stop. The whipping master raised his eyebrows and appeared to be singing as he spanked away, and Valentine’s head was bowed and he was soon dancing on his knees and crying completely, indeed reduced to the deepest and most complete vulnerability before our eyes. But his hands held fast to his gathered scrotum and hard cock and though he bounced on his knees—he couldn’t help it—his organ never once touched the master’s apron.

  The rumble of voices in the place grew louder, more spirited, though no one actually turned to look—that I could see—at the poor boy.

  I could feel the current of excitement passing through the room, as if the paddle were a drum beating a lusty cadence.

  Now the boy was squirming desperately in that hopeless effort to escape the paddle, the body unable to accept what the mind knew. The loud hard spanks came slower, but the boy was woefully red.

  The whipping master snapped the fingers of his left hand for his groom and made a gesture I did not know.

  At once the groom came round and reached down for the boy’s ankles and then effortlessly hiked them high into the air, the boy’s twisting and turning body pulled back and lifted off the apron so only his chest and shoulders rested on it, and the whipping master pounded the elevated backside, whistling or singing to himself as before. How he seemed to love it. I’d never thought before about these men who did nothing day in and day out but paddle and spank. He seemed a paragon of his profession. His blue eyes positively twinkled beneath his heavy gray brows.

  At last he drew a breath and sat back. The boy’s sobs were loud though his lips were shut.

  “Now, do I give the best spanking in this village, or do I not?” asked the whipping master, rubbing the boy’s pretty hair with his hand. “Come on, speak up, Valentine, I’m not hearing anything. I’m going to spank you again, if you don’t speak up.”

  “Yes, sir,” sobbed the boy but his voice was low and restrained and had dignity to it. “The best, sir, and please, sir, spank me as you please, sir.”

  More paddling on the bottom now swinging in the air. The powerful groom had no problem holding the boy’s ankles, and the boy’s hands never left his genitals nor tried to cover them up. His cock was red and gleaming. I could see the tip of it lathering. Oh, how I knew that desperation.

  I knew it now.

  And as if Alexi were reading my mind as surely as Lady Eva had, he said:

  “Are you nearly coming under those fancy Russian clothes?”

  “How about you?” I asked.

  “Just about!”

  We must have been there an hour.

  Finally it was full dark and I’d seen five slaves, three boys and two girls, very efficiently and effectively spanked.

  One of the girls, a precious nymph with black curls, had obviously come while being spanked, but it didn’t seem the great cheerful Lord of the Paddle knew it. The groom certainly knew it as he saw her red face and her stuttering spasms. I saw him smile.

  The patrons had seen it and they began to scold and point and shake their heads and wag their fingers.

  And so she was forced to make the round of the Punishment Shop on her knees after—t
he groom holding her wrists high—touching her tender little moist pelt to each boot in so far as she could squat that low, and begging pardon for her indulgence of those who scarcely took the time to wiggle her chin or tousle her curls. Many gentlemen and even ladies extended their boots or shoes for her to touch them with her moist sex, and patted her on the head forgivingly.

  I’d never been made to do this. I’d never come while being paddled in this shop.

  Patrons filled a little pouch hanging around her neck for another spanking.

  When she’d come round to us, having made a circuit of the place from left to right, I felt her succulent wet sex and kissed her upturned mouth.

  “Bad girl!” I said. “Take it from a bad boy. I know.” I put two coins in her pouch.

  “My lord,” she whispered with perfect manners.

  I felt of the sweet firm flesh under her arms, and then pinched both her nipples.

  Alexi, who’d been watching all with very detached eyes, beckoned for her to be brought round to him. “Lift her,” he said. The groom did this so that her hips were right in front of him. “Now offer me your ripe little plum, girl,” he said.

  She pushed her pelvis forward as best as she could, fresh tears springing to her eyes. He spanked her pubis hard with his flat fingers over and over. “Bad, bad, bad girl!” he said in a low scornful voice. “Do you know the meaning of the word ‘perfection’?”

  “I’m so sorry, my lord,” she said, her lips quivering, her wet cheeks glistening in the candlelight.

  I observed all this with a little surprise. But I said nothing.

  He slipped coins into her little purse for more spanking.

  “You tell the whipping master to spank her until she exhibits complete control,” he told the handler.

  And off she was taken to be put in the line and spanked once more. Maybe only once more.

  It was then that Prince Richard saw us and joined us and he chatted with Alexi as though he could afford to have a little relief from his vigilance. He remembered me.

  “Prince Dmitri,” he said. “You don’t know how I envied you, that you knew the sultanate before it was destroyed.”

  “Yes, that was an education, Prince,” I said, “but this is our world, and frankly, I find it now infinitely superior. I suspect whatever we learned in the sultanate will blossom in this realm under a brighter more loving sun than ever we knew there.” I thought of Lexius; I thought of many things.

  He smiled at me. “Dmitri, you are as I remembered you,” he said. “Always so filled with philosophy.”

  “I’d call it poetry,” said Alexi with a little grin.

  “Ah, it’s all talk,” I confessed. “We learned things in the sultanate, true, but in a way, everything that truly shaped my soul had occurred here.”

  “Yes, I know what you mean,” Richard answered. “Well, you have chosen the most glorious time for your return.”

  “That is undoubtedly true,” I said.

  It was full dark when the three of us went out, as Prince Richard wanted to be at Court tonight and lived at the castle besides, and Alexi invited him to return with us.

  We walked through the village together. It was filled with light—torches, lighted windows, candlelighted shops open for late visitors, and lanterns hung outside doors. Lots of gaily painted paddles and straps for sale, along with myriad other toys.

  Lots of slaves on display, Herms indeed. I saw one splendid damsel with a silver phallus rising between her legs. Alexi pointed out it was a new fashion, the double phallus—one-half well anchored in the girl, the other half displayed in manly fashion. There were many such new toys for sale in the shop behind her. “It can be strapped on tight if she’s meant to use it to penetrate a young piglet in the rear,” said Prince Richard. “Lady Eva designed it.”

  Prince Alexi said that Eva was brilliant.

  “I’ll come down later, after all the festivities,” Richard explained to me. “Should you want to join me, you’re welcome. The crowd’s a bit more rowdy and the late-night whipping mistress is a marvel. She’s a different story from the loving old father you just witnessed.”

  This set my cock to stirring again. But then so had the double phallus.

  “Thin, pointed features, but hands made of living marble,” Richard continued describing the late-night whipping mistress. “She wears an old-fashioned wimple over her hair, and is immaculate and severe in attire.”

  “A child’s nurse from the Underworld,” said Alexi breezily, “where Sisyphus struggles forever to move his boulder up the hill.”

  Richard laughed. “She is a great believer in her own dour methods,” he said scornfully.

  “She puts me in mind of old Lord Gregory,” said Alexi. “He is still with us, Dmitri, and the same. Always angry, always in a state of indignation, always believing that a slave is beyond hope!”

  “Yes,” said Richard. “She’s cut from that very cloth. She offers vicious indignation and horror to each little piglet and partridge at their disobedience, and even those sent merely for their weekly maintenance hear her imprecations and ominous warnings against being lazy and disrespectful and utterly lost.”

  I’d never known a whipping mistress in the village in my time. Oh, the women of the village whipped their slaves hard enough, but women had not worked in these places then.

  When we reached the gate, I expected to see all the King’s ponies refreshed, but this was an entire new team except for Caspian and Bastian in the lead and a tall magnificent pony tethered to their far right. It was all as blindingly impressive as it had been before.

  I went up to have a look at that splendid new pony.

  “That’s César, Prince,” said a groom. “The King’s favorite of the moment.”

  The pony was too tall to be well matched with the others, but likely there weren’t many with whom he could be matched.

  He stood staring straight ahead, his back respectfully arched, and his chin high as I looked at him. He had a great mane of white-blond hair, but with some of it tied back and braided to keep it out of his face.

  And this pony had an extraordinary face—a high and broad and serene forehead and beautifully etched dark eyebrows that were high placed to show off his huge blue eyes. His cheekbones were beautiful. His mouth, even with the bit in it, was clearly magnificent.

  I reached out tentatively towards his mouth.

  “Oh, do examine him,” said Alexi softly to me.

  I felt of the man’s lower lip. I could see him sigh and lift his shoulders and then straighten himself, all but shivering under my touch. His gilded nipples were enormous and had been wound with adhesive paste and fine wire, and from the wire hung teardrop weights against his chest.

  In his navel was a gold medallion with a lion’s head on it.

  He was one of the more nearly perfect humans I’d ever beheld.

  “He pulls the King’s small chariot, my lord,” said the enthusiastic and helpful groom. He drew up and smoothed back César’s hair. “He’s the ‘king of the stable,’ if you will. Aren’t you, César?”

  The pony smiled, his eyes crinkling, his cheeks plumping, and I heard a low secretive laugh come from him.

  The groom smacked his backside and he jumped, but only a little. His legs were like marble.

  “He’s been kept idle all day,” said the groom, “in case His Majesty should want to ride out, so we’re to work him hard tonight.”

  “And does this mean he is a paragon?” I asked.

  “He had better be,” said Alexi in a droll voice. “If he weren’t, well, let’s just say his backside and legs would be the color of burgundy wine, and his face would be so wet you would think it freshly enameled.”

  The groom thought that was wondrously clever. And something quickened in César’s face as if he too were amused, but he stood firm as if on principle.
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  All the while Richard observed these things with vague amusement.

  We returned to the chariot, the ponies straining at their harnesses and shifting their weight from foot to foot as if eager to run.

  “Tell me, Richard, if you can—there was an old scholar in my time,” I said. “Well, no older then than we are now. A very cheerful and learned man. Do you remember him? Is he still in the village? He used to stroll by my old master’s house . . .”

  “Why, of course, I recall the man. He’s the bookseller, and quite the connoisseur of ancient texts as well. His shop is the only one of its kind in the kingdom and it’s a bit of a library, with everyone borrowing from it now and then, and with the King sending down for books, and even donating new ones. Seems the King is as partial to books as to gold when visitors come.”

  “Ah, of course. A bookseller!”

  “Yes, and the scribe for the most demanding documents or letters, you know, as he knows all the official greetings and even some of the law. Roland is his name.”

  “Ah, that’s it,” I said. “I remember now, Roland. I recalled him when that poor boy, Valentine, said that he spilt the ink.”

  “Did he say that?” asked Richard. “Well, Valentine belongs to Roland, and Roland is hardly the strictest of masters. Likely he must write himself notes to remember to send Valentine to the Punishment Shop, but it’s demanding work in that bookshop, and Roland makes a pretty footstool of Valentine for hours when he’s writing. He paid a lot at the public sale for Valentine, as Valentine is highly educated and can read and write. Our lady mayor bid against him for Valentine, but lost.”

  I smiled. Often the slaves with the most serene faces were those who knew how to read and write, why I had no idea.

  But it was time to mount the chariot and be off. The festivities would begin late and I was tired and needed the warmth and comfort and cleansing of the bath.

  The long winding way back up the hill was lined with torches. And at several points I marveled to see brightly illuminated shrines in which highly polished slaves were posed and bound in what seemed rather beautiful positions. The lanterns surrounding these niches and their human artifacts were large and glittered with multiple candle flames.