by Anne Rice
“Yes, Claudio,” said Beauty, “of the auburn hair, rawboned, tall, but utterly enchanting. We’ve had him at the royal table countless times. He keeps the most piquant little slave, Isabella.”
“Yes, well, I’m for letting him do it,” said Dmitri. “In fact, I’d love to acquaint him with the rigors of the village myself, as I did Stefan. Now as for the third, well, this is young Lord Lysius, grandnephew of the old king at our border, and I think he is being hasty. He does not realize what it means to be anointed a slave. He thinks he does, but, well, all I can say is, he does not. He’s a dreamer, a poet, in love with the kingdom but not ready to serve others.”
“I agree,” said Alexi. “Lord Lysius should be refused. And if we do have four ceremonies of acceptance a year, well, he could be put off for a certain period of months with the promise that he might apply again.”
“Seems you have it well in hand,” Beauty said. And she believed it. But she was not so sure young Lord Lysius should be refused. She knew him. He was a lad of sensitivity and great imagination. He knew what the slaves felt as he punished them. Why shouldn’t he take the mask? But she would press this later.
“But what special night, what festival, should be the occasion for these presentations?” asked Rosalynd.
“A Festival of Masks,” said Beauty. “I have been thinking of it for some time. A great and beautiful Festival of Masks when all the Court shall mask as well, and all free men and women of the kingdom.”
“Ah, lovely,” said Rosalynd.
“A great night of masked dancing and frolicking when all wearing clothes shall wear masks to embolden them to celebrate the freedom of Bellavalten,” said Beauty. “Something like the old celebrations of Perchta at Midwinter.” She smiled to think of Perchta, the old goddess of spinning.
And it had been a spinning wheel that had been Beauty’s long-ago undoing, when as a girl of fifteen she pricked her finger on a spindle and fell asleep for a hundred years.
But what did Perchta mean for all the world?
Didn’t matter. She was seeing a more complex and wholly original festival.
“And in our festival,” said Beauty, “all naked slaves of the village and of the Court and of the kingdom may frolic as well in the castle gardens for that one night, free of restraint and punishment, to dance and drink and embrace one another, along with their masked lords and ladies. We shall all celebrate the freedom of the kingdom.”
“A form of Saturnalia,” said Dmitri.
“The only naked slaves who shall wear masks on that night,” said Beauty, “will be the five who are accepted for the Discipline of the Mask, and they shall wear their masks thereafter for six months, at which time they may remove them and return to Court or become slaves indefinitely.”
“Perfect,” said Alexi. “Simply perfect.”
“And that settles it,” said Dmitri. “Stefan should wear his mask for six months from the time he put it on.”
“That is my wish,” said Beauty. “And as for young Lord Lysius, the decision is his also.”
“Ah, this will be wonderful fun,” said Rosalynd, “but what great ritual will lie at the center of it.”
“I’m coming to that,” said Beauty. “You, and Dmitri, you were both on the ship with me and Tristan and Laurent as we sailed to the sultanate. Do you remember an early feast on board the ship in which Tristan and I were gilded lovers?”
“I remember it vividly,” said Dmitri.
“So do I,” said Rosalynd. “And we spoke of it often afterwards. We saw other such reenactments in the sultanate. It had no great meaning for them, but I am seeing what meaning it might have for us.”
“I was painted in gold,” said Beauty, “and surrounded with fruit dipped in honey, and my body filled with such, and I was laid out on a great bier as if I were a feast myself, and then Tristan came, and ate the fruits with which I was filled and coupled with me.”
“I can see this,” said Alexi.
“Yes,” said Beauty, “but now imagine it with our gracious king agreeing on that night to remove all his clothes and adornments—except for his mask—so that he, of his own will, couples with the gilded female slave offered to him on a great platter. Imagine it, the great ceremonial coupling of king and kingdom.”
“Oh, so splendid,” said Alexi. “The marriage of king and kingdom. Yes, this would be a great and sacred moment.”
“I can hear the harps and the drums,” said Beauty, “and see His Majesty rising from the throne at the sacred moment and stripping off his fine clothes, with only his mask left—perhaps a mask that has the horns of Pan or the horns of a goat—for he would be the goat god, the god of wine, the god of fertility, the god of rampant celebration—and imagine him approaching the bier on which the gilded female slave is offered to him.”
“Breathtaking,” said Alexi.
“Yes,” said Beauty. “She would be all painted in gold, and she too would be masked because she represents all slaves of the kingdom—all slaves, not her single solitary self—as the King couples with her.”
“Yes,” said Dmitri. “The King should eat the fruit from inside her and then take her. Ah, the great wedding of all who rule with all who serve!”
“But how shall you figure in it, Beauty?” said Alexi. He had forgotten to address her as “Queen” or “my lady,” but Beauty didn’t care. If anything she wanted all of them to be less formal.
“Well, the Queen must watch from behind her mask on the throne, I would imagine,” she said. She had chosen her words carefully. But she was thinking of something else entirely.
“Do you think our beloved king will do it?” asked Dmitri.
Beauty laughed. “If ever there was a king who would, it is Laurent. I can see it now, see his ruddy flesh and the gilded flesh of the prone slave, and see the two masks, his decorated with horns, yes, and hers perhaps with green leaves and purple grapes painted on the leather, and the whole platter, the whole bier, decorated with such Bacchanalian foliage.”
A moment of silence passed.
“My queen, you keep dreaming the dreams,” said Rosalynd. “We can easily make of this a perfect reality. I’m ready now to make drawings, the plans. We will need many more musicians, vats of the finest wine, and all the naked slaves shall be encouraged to dance on that night with utter abandon.”
“All shall dance with utter abandon,” said Beauty.
“But the masked girl, the slave chosen to represent the kingdom,” Dmitri pressed. “Who should she be? Someone very special. I mean this should be a very special honor, to be chosen for such a ceremonial wedding. Should she remove her mask afterwards?”
“Remove her mask? Why should she? For she is everyone,” said Beauty. “And I do have someone very special in mind, but you must let me ponder that now on my own for a while.”
Her eyes drifted and she saw Dmitri looking up dreamily as he envisioned this. But Alexi’s eyes were fixed quietly on Beauty, and Rosalynd too regarded her with a secret smile, gazing at her out of the corner of her eyes.
“Announce the feast. The night does not matter. We make a new custom here, and shall hold such a feast as soon as we can. And we shall make the date a memorial. Announce it shall be the night when the accepted Disciples of the Mask will step forward and be taken off by Prince Dmitri at the end of the night to the village to begin their servitude. Perhaps they shall be ceremonially bound for their journey. Make a great raised dais for this great platter or banquet table on which the slave girl shall lie after she is brought in. And make sure the dais for the King and Queen is above it. And leave the King to me. I will put it to him so that he will do it. And the Queen shall preside as always from her throne as the ceremony is accomplished.”
For an hour they spoke of nothing else but the feast which now had the title “The First Festival of Masks,” and Rosalynd at Beauty’s writing table scribbled down
many ideas and drew some scant pictures.
At last Beauty dismissed them all except for Dmitri.
The bolt was thrown on the door, and in the warm shadowy chamber, they both removed their garments. How marvelous to shed the heavy trappings of royal attire and stand naked on the bare floor.
The size of Dmitri’s nude breasts astonished Beauty. He seemed as accustomed to them as Lexius had been to his. And he showed not the slightest shame as Beauty drank him in with her eyes.
“And this is only one week on the elixir?” she asked.
“Yes,” said Dmitri, gazing at her with the serene face of a statue. “And Lexius left us plenty enough for many to imbibe if they wish. Matthieu has no difficulty with the formula. He will soon be able to make as much as we like.”
“And how do they feel to you?” Beauty asked, though she wanted above all to know how they might feel to her.
“Tender,” he said. “Firm, but exquisitely sensitive.”
“In time we shall talk of this,” said Beauty. “Of those who might want to drink this potion. For now, you do as you wish.”
She was so glad that Eva had not asked to take her alchemist, Matthieu, with her, and that he remained still in his workshop producing potions and pastes, and lotions and perfumes.
Matthieu was quiet and solitary by nature, and took no direct interest in slaves, though he used them all the time in his experiments. It was amusing in fact to watch him feeding a passion potion to a female slave and then feeling her soft little pubic patch for the telltale moisture. He took note of this as a tailor might of a measurement and wrote it down directly. He never so much as glanced at the faces of the slaves strapped to his walls as he went about his work.
Beauty drew near to Dmitri and stroked his breasts. She could resist no longer. His cock came to life immediately. Dmitri thrilled and intrigued her as no other being in the kingdom just now, and he seemed to have grown in grace since he’d taken more of the potion that made him the great enigmatic god who stood before her.
She led him to the bed and they lay down together.
“Ah, this is so splendid,” she said, lying beside him, facing him, studying him, stroking him. “If I could only grow a cock only for a night.” She was lost in his eerie beauty.
“My queen, you have no need of one,” he said. “You are as much a man and woman as I am a man and woman.”
They pressed close to each other, their breasts crushed against one another, and he kissed her lips tenderly. She felt a throbbing in her breasts and in the little chamber between her legs. She felt herself melting against him, against his silky skin.
“And you, you alone, behold me as I truly am,” he said to her in a voice rich with feeling that deeply touched her. “You and you alone see and feel these ornaments that make me doubly your conquest.”
“I alone?” she asked in a low purring whisper. “Not even Stefan sees these luscious gifts?”
“Stefan wouldn’t want to see them,” said Dmitri. “And no, he shall never. For now, they belong to you.”
Beauty pressed Dmitri down on the pillow so that he lay on his back. She straddled him, and rising up received his cock gratefully. Such a divine sensation, that of the hard cock going deep into her, widening her vaginal mouth, rubbing harshly against her burning clitoris. Reaching for his breasts as he reached for hers, she moved up and down on the wet shaft of his cock, slowly finding the inevitable rhythm. Her eyes closed, her hands kneading his breasts cruelly, her thoughts filled with flaming bits and pieces of dreams, she came—crying Dmitri’s name. She felt the hot semen inside her.
Tumbling down beside him, she fell into an easy sleep, now and then nuzzling into his breasts or feeling his lips graze her forehead and cheeks gently.
Suddenly an unfamiliar impulse came over her. She motioned for him to turn over on his face. Drowsily and wordlessly, he obeyed, his eyes closed, his face serene and soft against the pillow.
She explored his hard firm back, his small waist, and the bones of his narrow hips, and then her fingers stroked his soft backside, and pried apart the cheeks of his bottom so that she could see the pink little anus there. He offered no resistance to her. Seldom had she ever examined this part of a man, which so delighted others in the kingdom. Now she studied the tiny wrinkled mouth. She pushed at it with her fingers. Dmitri was awake, she was sure of it, but lay silent and still. She felt the desire to find a wand with a phallus on the end of it, the kind used for driving pets in the garden. She had never used those wands. She’d always pulled her little puppy, Brenn, along by a leash. But she thought now that next time she would examine Brenn’s nether endowments with greater interest, and she would drive him with such a wand, and maybe Dmitri as well when the mood came over her. Yes, she might drive Dmitri around this room, and it would be interesting to see how his backside looked at the end of the wand, how his shoulders would look, and his face, yes, his face, when he was made to crawl about in this manner for her. He would love it. She knew that he would.
She lay back down to sleep once more.
In the quiet bedroom with only the flames of the fire for light, the King’s step sounded. The door shut.
She opened her eyes to see his face as he raised his eyebrows and looked down on Dmitri.
The Prince awoke, and dutifully left the bed, snatching up his clothes before disappearing into the antechamber.
“How now, my little damsel?” said the King. “I’ll drive that princeling from your mind with every thrust!” He tore off his garments and let them drop. Then he mounted her and she felt the great familiar crush of his cock inside of her. And looking up in her delirium she saw the handsome face that had guided her waking life for decades, and guided it still.
“King of my heart,” she said. Falling away from him, she pushed her face into the pillow.
“And this little queenly bottom is still all mine,” said Laurent softly in her ear. “No one else has whipped or spanked it.” She felt his large warm hand closing over her buttocks.
“No, my lord,” she whispered sleepily in reply, “and I do not think anyone else ever will.”
“But if you wish . . .”
She smiled. She was so sleepy. He had never said this before.
“If you wish, you know, it is your prerogative. . . .”
“Hush, my lord,” she said. “I do not wish. Go to sleep.”
Hours later, Beauty fell into a vivid dream. The great fairy wise woman, Titania of Mataquin, was talking to her and they sat together in a great grove of multicolored flowers and gentle green willows by a small sparkling stream. This was the fairy queen’s realm.
Titania spoke to her.
“Ah, but don’t you see, the laws that bind you are yours to change to your own purposes. You are mistress and slave of all the realm.”
It was the most glorious night in Bellavalten that she had ever experienced. The garden was thronged with masked revelers in festive attire, and naked slaves dancing together in circles both great and small, and in pairs and in chains as they rushed singing through the many scattered little pavilions and tables.
Every fountain had been emptied, cleaned, and filled with the finest wine. And vats of wine were everywhere positioned for those who would dip their goblets or tankards.
The spectacle of the masked people of the village and the Court was splendid and exciting even beyond imagining. And the musicians from far and wide played the gayest and lustiest tunes and dances.
Never had there been so many torches, lanterns strung in the limbs of the trees, or so many candelabra burning against the walls, or lamps shining on the countless tables.
In the spirit of a Saturnalia, citizens served themselves from the huge tables laid out with every meat and fruit and delicacy. And the slaves feasted as well.
The grooms and attendants on duty wore masks, though they worked always to see that table
s remained clean, that all had what they needed, that nothing ran short as the feast continued hour after hour. Yet even they partook of the delicious food and wine, and had their turns at dancing and singing.
Beauty sat back, comfortable in the immense gilded throne looking down on the dais prepared for the great marriage ceremony directly before her. All the Court could see the dais and see the masked king and queen as they smiled down on their subjects.
The King had danced over and over, and the King and Queen many times, and the Queen with her beloved Alexi and Dmitri.
The thumping of drums, the peal of pipes, and the strumming of lutes and lyres filled the air, along with the cries of the excited merrymakers.
No slave pets tonight, no slaves bound to crosses, no slaves driven on the Bridle Path—only the shared gaiety of all the realm who gave no thought to tomorrow.
It was now the eleventh hour.
Very soon the gilded maiden would be brought in, and the King would rise to be the lord of the grape, the lord of the fields, the lord of plenty and celebration—and take his bride in his arms for the great ceremony. Of course he had been willing to do what his beloved Beauty had asked of him. What did it mean for him to strip naked and perform before his worshipful subjects? He had said at once, “What a great pleasure and what a small request.”
Beauty had loved him for it. Behind his ornate gold mask with its slanted eyes and horns he appeared deliciously frightening to her. As for her mask it was large and concealing as was his, and she wondered if her mouth seemed as lush and inviting to Laurent as his did to her. Ah, what masks did to faces and to souls.
Rosalynd appeared before the banquet table and nodded. Beauty knew her by her hair as well as her brilliant purple gown, and by her demeanor, of course, as she knew many in spite of their masks.
She rose at the signal and slipped away.
“To refresh myself, my lord,” she said. “I’ll be back momentarily. And I want to see to the gilded maiden, that all is as I want it to be.”