by Ann Rice
"Look up, precious, with those beautiful blue eyes of yours," said Lady Juliana, "and see what I have prepared to amuse the Queen, and further demonstrate your lovliness." She lifted a rose which had a rather short stem, no more than eight inches. "No thorns, my pet, and this I show you so you fear only what you should fear, and not carelessness or blunders."
Beauty could see the basket was heaped with such carefully prepared flowers.
The Queen gave a cheerful laugh and shifted in her chair. "Wine, Alexi," she said, "sweet wine, this room is rather permeated with sweetness."
Lady Juliana burst into soft laughter as though this were a wonderful compliment, and she danced about the room, twirling her rose-colored skirts, her braids swinging.
Beauty watched her in wonder, her vision still unclear from her crying, and the woman seemed, like the Queen, immense and powerful. She turned her smiling face on Beauty like a light. And the glare of the torches flashed in the deep red brooch she wore at her throat, and in the jewels sewn skillfully into her heavy girdle. Her pink satin slippers had silver heels and she danced up to Beauty and kissed the top of her head lovingly.
"But you look so forlorn and that is not good. Now kneel up, fold your arms behind your back to show your exquisite breasts, that's it, and arch your back more becomingly. Her hair, Felix, brush it."
And as the Page hastened to obey, gently untangling Beauty's long locks down her back, Beauty saw the Lady Juliana take from a chest nearby a long oval paddle.
It was very like the paddle used on the Bridle Path, but nothing as big or as heavy. In fact it was so flexible that Lady Juliana, setting down her basket of flowers, could make it vibrate when she pressed the tip of it with her thumb. It was white, smooth, and limber.
It will sting, Beauty realized, but it will not truly hurt as badly as the Queen's hand, and it will hurt nothing as badly as that weapon on the Bridle Path, yet she realized her buttocks were so thoroughly welted that each light blow would enkindle a certain amount of pain in her.
Lady Juliana, laughing, whispering with the Queen in her girlish manner, turned back as Felix finished. Beauty knelt waiting.
"And so our gracious Sovereign spanked you over her lap, did she? And you have had the Bridle Path, and you have learned something of grooming. And then there has been your Lord and Master's temper and demands, and now and then a little routine smacking from your groom or Lord Gregory."
"My groom has never smacked me," Beauty thought crossly, but she merely replied, "Yes, my Lady..." as was expected.
"But now you shall learn some actual discipline, for in the little game I devise your will to please is direly tested. And don't think you shan't profit from it. Now..." She lifted a handful of roses from the basket. "I shall scatter these about the room, and do you know what you shall do, my precious girl, you shall run very fast to gather each one in your teeth and place in the lap of your Sovereign. And when she has quite finished with you, you shall go fetch another, and another, and another. And you shall do that as fast as you can, and do you know why, because you are commanded to do so, and you shall be much punished if you do not rush to obey as we command you."
She raised her eyebrows, smiling at Beauty.
"Yes, my Lady," Beauty replied, unable to think, though the thought of having to hurry to obey struck a strange new note of apprehension in her. Gracelessness. She dreaded it. On the Bridle Path there had been much gracelessness when she was running so fast and out of breath... O, but she must not think of anything save what she had to do now.
"And on your hands and knees of course, my girl, and be very very quick!"
Lady Juliana at once scattered the little pink rosebuds with their waxed stems everywhere.
Beauty bent forward and was grasping the nearest in her teeth when she realized that Lady Juliana was right behind her. The handle of the oval paddle was so long, Lady Juliana did not even bend over as she spanked Beauty and with a start, Beauty dropped the flower.
"Pick it up at once!" Lady Juliana cried out, and Beauty's lips scraped the carpet before she had it.
The paddle came down with a fearful zinging sound, smacking her sore welts as she rushed on her hands and knees to the Queen, and Lady Juliana managed some seven or eight good blows before Beauty had dropped the flower in the Queen's lap obediently.
"Now turn around at once," commanded the Lady, "and off you go." But she was already spanking Beauty fiercely as Beauty ran in search of another flower. As soon as she had it in her lips, she ran to the Queen, but the blows followed her. And Beauty wanted to cry out for patience as she went for another.
She gathered a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, depositing each in the Queen's lap, yet there was no escape from the paddle, from its persistence, nor Lady Juliana's voice urging her on crossly.
"Quickly, my girl, quickly, get it in your lips and back again." It seemed her flaring pink skirt was everywhere in Beauty's eyes, and Beauty was surrounded by the flashing of her little silver-heeled slippers. Beauty's knees burned from the rough wool of the carpet, yet she went breathlessly on in her search seeing the tiny pink roses everywhere.
And yet no matter how she gasped for breath, no matter how moist were her face and her limbs, she could not blot from her mind the thought of what she was doing. She could see her own buttocks splotched with white welts, her reddened thighs, and her breasts dangling between her arms as she rushed across the floor like a pitiable animal. There was no mercy for her, and the worst of it was that she could not please Lady Juliana, Lady Juliana goaded her, even kicked her now with the toe of her slipper. Beauty's cries were wordless pleas, but Lady Juliana's tone was angry, unsatisfied.
It was dreadful to be struck in anger.
"Hurry! Do you hear me!" Lady Juliana sounded almost contemptuous, spanking Beauty all the harder, and making little tisks now of impatience. Beauty's nipples scraped the carpet as she bent to obey, and with a shock she felt the toe of Lady Juliana's slipper in her pubis. She gave a startled cry and rushed back to the Queen with the rose as all about her it seemed was the muted laughter of the Pages and the Queen's higher laughter. But Lady Juliana had found the tender spot again, forcing that long pointed satin slipper right into Beauty's vagina.
Suddenly as Beauty turned and saw yet more roses scattered before her, her sobs went into muffled shrieks and she turned to Lady Juliana even as the paddle spanked her thighs and her calves, and kissed and kissed those pink satin slippers.
"What?" Lady Juliana said with genuine outrage. "You dare beg me for mercy before the Queen? Wretched, wretched girl!" She smacked Beauty's buttocks, but she had Beauty by the hair with her left hand and pulled her up, snapping her head back so that Beauty's knees went wide apart to keep her balance.
Beauty's open-mouthed sobs were choked and uneven. And she saw the paddle being passed to one of the Pages who offered the Lady a heavy broad leather belt immediately.
The belt struck Beauty's buttocks with a resounding wallop. Again it struck her. "Take another rose, another, two, three, four in your mouth at once and give them to your Queen immediately!"
Beauty ran to obey, and it seemed for a moment all perception left her. She was frantic to obey, to outdistance Lady Juliana's anger. It was hotter, more frenzied than the Bridle Path at its worst, and as she turned to gather more of the little roses, she felt the Queen catch her face in both hands and hold her still so that Lady Juliana could beat her.
It did not matter. She could not please. She deserved to be beaten. She quivered with every blow of the strap, yet, drenched with tears, she even lifted her buttocks to receive the punishment.
But the Queen was not satisfied still, and she turned Beauty around, her hand on Beauty's hair to pull her head back, as Lady Juliana now smacked Beauty's breasts and her belly and made the wide leather strap lick at her pubis.
The Queen held Beauty's hair fast.
"Open your legs!" Lady Juliana commanded.
"Oooooh..." Beauty sobbed aloud, but she obeyed, and desperately she thrust
her hips forward to receive the angry punishment. She must please Lady Juliana, she must show her that she had tried. Her sobs came hoarse and brokenhearted.
And the strap smacked her pubic lips again and again, and she did not know what was worse, the little shock of pain, or the violation of it.
Her head was pulled so far back she was now resting it in the Queen's lap, and she felt her own sobs rising up out of her chest and out of her lips almost languidly.
"I am defenseless, I am nothing," she found herself thinking as she had thought it on the Bridle Path in the midst of the worst exhaustion. The belt licked her breast. It was no more than she could bear, and it did not even occur to her to lift her arms, though her pubis was flooded with warm pain. Her sobs had a delicious release for her.
She felt herself growing limp, yielding. She felt the Queen's hand caressing her chin, and then she realized Lady Juliana had dropped down before her in a flurry of pink silk and was kissing her throat and her shoulders.
"There, there," said the Queen, "my brave little slave..."
"There, there, my girl, my virtuous, lovely girl," said Lady Juliana at once as if given permission. The blows had stopped. Beauty's cries filled the room. "And you were good, very good, you tried very hard, and you struggled so hard to be graceful."
The Queen moved Beauty forward into Lady Juliana's arms, and Lady Juliana rose to her feet pulling Beauty up in her embrace, her hands pressed into Beauty's enflamed buttocks.
Lady Juliana's arms were soft and her lips were tickling Beauty, stroking her, and Beauty felt her breasts against Lady Juliana's plump breasts, and then Beauty seemed to lose all awareness of her own weight, her sense of balance.
She was drifting in Lady Juliana's arms, feeling the delicious cloth of the Lady's gown, and her rounded limbs beneath it.
"O, sweet little Beauty, my Beauty, you are so good, so very good," the Lady whispered to her. And her lips pried open Beauty's lips, and her tongue touched the inside of Beauty's mouth as her fingers pressed harder into Beauty's buttocks. Beauty's wet sex was pressed against Lady Juliana's gown, and she felt the hard mound of Lady Juliana's sex. "Blessed Beauty, O, you do love me, don't you, I love you dearly."
Beauty could not stop herself from throwing her arms about Lady Juliana's neck. She felt the prickling of those blond braids, but Lady Juliana's skin was plump and soft, and her lips strong and silken.
They sucked at Beauty's mouth, plump lips, while Lady Juliana's teeth bit here and there as if tasting Beauty.
And then Beauty looked into Lady Juliana's eyes, so large and innocent and full of tender concern. Beauty moaned and laid her cheek against Lady Juliana's cheek.
"That is enough," said the Queen coldly.
Slowly, slowly, Beauty felt herself being released. She was being forced down, and languidly she let herself droop, until she sat on her heels on the floor, her legs parted slightly, her sex nothing but craving and pain to her.
She bowed her head. She feared above all that she would lose control of this mounting pleasure. She would blush, she would pant, she would writhe with it, unable to disguise it from those before her. So she parted her legs, feeling her pubis open and close like a hungry little mouth desperate for satisfaction.
Yet she did not care. She had known there would be no release for her.
It was enough to feel the rough wool of the carpet against her itching, stinging buttocks, and all life seemed but gradations of pain and pleasure. Her breasts seemed to be tipped with weights, ad she let her head fall to the side, and a great ripple of relaxation ran through her. What more could they do to her with their games, it did not matter. "Do it," she thought, and her eyes melted into tears, the torchlight a glare before her.
She looked up.
Lady Juliana and the Queen stood side by side, the Queen's arms about Lady Juliana's shoulder. And they were both looking down at Beauty as Lady Juliana unbraided her hair and the little rosebuds fell free at her feet unheeded.
The moment seemed to go on forever.
Beauty rose to her knees again. She moved silently forward. She bent down with great delicacy and picked up one of the tiny rosebuds in her teeth, and she lifted her head in offering.
She felt the rose taken from her. And then the gentle cool kisses of both women.
"Very good, my darling," said the Queen with the first true affection.
Beauty pressed her lips to their slippers.
She heard through her drowsiness the Queen's command that she be taken by the Pages and chained to the wall of the dressing room nearby until morning.
"Spread her, and spread her wide," said the Queen.
And Beauty knew with a sweet despair that her craving would not for a long time leave her.
WITH PRINCE ALEXI
THE QUEEN slept surely. Maybe Lady Juliana slept in her arms. The whole castle slept, and beyond it the villages and the towns, the peasants in their cottages and hovels.
And through the high, narrow window of the dressing room, the sky gave a moon-white light on the wall where Beauty was shackled, her ankles far apart, her wrists spread equally wide apart above her. She lay her head to the side, gazing at the long row of magnificent gowns, the mantles on their hooks, the circlets of gold and embroidery, the beautiful ornamental chains, and heaps upon heaps of lovely slippers.
And here she was among these things as if she were but an adornment, a possession, kept with other valuable possessions.
She sighed, and she deliberately rubbed her head against the stone wall, wanting somehow to punish it more so that after a few seconds she could feel the relief when she stopped doing this.
Her sex would not stop its throbbing. It was sticky with its own wetness. Poor Princess Lizetta in the Hall of Punishments, did she suffer worse than this? At least she was not alone in the darkness, and suddenly even those who must pass her, taunting her, teasing her, stroking her swelling sex, seemed to Beauty a desirable company. She strained and twisted her hips. It was no comfort to her, and she did not understand why she felt this craving when only a little while ago her pain had been so great she had kissed Lady Juliana's slippers. She flushed to think of Lady Juliana's angry words, those reproving spanks that somehow hurt her worse than the others.
And how the Pages must have laughed when a dozen Princess had probably played the little gathering game with the roses and done it better.
But why, why had Beauty at the very end picked up that last rosebud, and why had she felt her breasts swollen with warmth when Lady Juliana took it from her lips? It had seemed in that moment that Beauty's nipples were cruel little caps that prevented pleasure from breaking loose in her. Strange thought. They seemed too tight for her then, her nipples, and her sex gaped and hungered and the moisture trickled down the inside of her thighs, and when she thought of Prince Alexi's smile, and Lady Juliana's brown eye, and the Prince's beautiful face, and even the Queen, yes, even the Queen's red lips, she felt herself burning in agony.
Prince Alexi's sex was thick and dark, like all of him, and his nipples a dark, dark rose color.
She tossed her head, rolled it against the wall. But why had she picked up the rose, offered it to pretty Lady Juliana?
She stared forward in the darkness, and hearing a creaking sound very near to her, she thought she was imagining it.
But in the darkness of the near wall, a seam of light appeared and widened. The door had been opened, and Prince Alexi slipped into the dressing room. Unbound, free, he was standing before her, and very gently, he pushed the door closed behind him.
Beauty held her breath.
He did not move, as if he must accustom himself to the darkness, and then immediately he came forward and released Beauty's wrists and ankles.
She stood trembling. And then her arms were about him. He held her against his chest, his stiff organ prodding her thighs, and she felt the silken skin of his face, and then his mouth opened over hers, hard, yes, savoring her.
"Beauty," he gave a deep sigh
and she knew he was smiling. Her hand went up to feel his eyelashes. In the light of the moon she saw the planes of his face, his white teeth. She touched him all over hungrily, desperately. And then she descended upon him with loud kisses.
"Wait, wait, my lovely one, I am as anxious as you are," he whispered. But she couldn't keep her hands off his shoulders, his neck, his satin flesh.
"Come with me," he said and though it seemed an effort to disengage himself, he opened another door and took her down a long, low-roofed passage.
The moon entered windows that were no more than narrow slices out of the wall, and then he paused before one of many heavy doors, and she found herself descending a twisting stairway.
Beauty grew afraid.
"But where are we going? We'll be caught, and what will happen to us?" she whispered.
But he had opened a door and led her into a little chamber.
One little square of window gave them light, and Beauty saw a heavy straw bed covered with a white blanket. A servant's robe hung upon a hook, but all was neglected as if the room had long ago been forgotten.
Alexi bolted the door. No one could possibly open it.
"I thought you meant to escape," Beauty sighed with relief. "But will they find us here?"
Alexi was looking at her, the moon full on his face and his eyes that were filled with that strange serenity.
"The Queen sleeps every night of her life until the break of day. Felix has been dismissed. If I'm at the foot of her bed at dawn, we won't be discovered. But there is always the chance, and then we shall be punished."
"O, I don't care, I don't care." Beauty said frantically.
"Neither do I," he started to say, but his mouth was buried in Beauty's neck as Beauty flung her arms about him.
At once they were on the straw bed, against the soft blanket. Beauty's buttocks felt the prickles of the straw, but they meant nothing to her so much as Alexi's wet, hard kisses. She pressed her breasts to his chest, she wrapped her legs about his hips and strained against him.
All the long night's teasing and tormenting of her was maddening her. And then he drove into her that thick sex she had desired from the first instant she had seen it. His thrusts were brutal, strong, as if he too were overcome with denied passion. Her aching sex was filled, her tight nipples throbbing, and she snapped her hips, lifting him as she had lifted the Prince, feeling him fill her, pinion her.