by Anne Rice
Prince Alexi was taken away.
Beauty sat staring at the open door.
But it was not over. The Prince reached out and taking her by the hair, told her to follow him.
“On your hands and knees, my dear. That is always the way you will move through the castle,” he said, “unless told otherwise.”
She hurried along, following him out and to the edge of the stairway.
Halfway down was a broad landing from which one might see directly into the Great Hall.
And on the landing was a stone statue that frightened Beauty. It was a pagan god of some sort with an erect phallus.
It was onto this phallus that Prince Alexi was now thrust, his legs bound apart on the pedestal of the statue. His head was laid back on the statue’s shoulder. He gave another moan as the phallus impaled him and then he lay still as Squire Felix bound his hands behind his back.
The statue’s right arm was upraised, the stone fingers of the hand forming a circle as if they had once clasped a knife or some other instrument. And now the Squire carefully positioned Prince Alexi’s head on the shoulder of the statue beneath that hand. And through the clasped hand, he placed a leather phallus, anchoring it so that it fit into Prince Alexi’s mouth.
It seemed now that the statue raped him both through his anus and through his mouth, and he was bound to it. And his organ, as stiff as before, lay thrust forward as the phallus of the statue was inside of him.
“Now you are perhaps a little more used to your Prince Alexi,” said the Prince softly.
“But this is too terrible,” Beauty thought, “that he must spend the night in this misery.” Prince Alexi’s back was painfully arched, his legs bound wide apart, and the moonlight from the window behind him made a long line down his throat, his smooth chest and his flat belly.
The Prince tugged gently on Beauty’s hair which he held wrapped around his right hand and leading her back to bed, he laid her down and told her to sleep, as he would soon be doing beside her.
PRINCE ALEXI AND FELIX
IT WAS almost dawn. The Prince lay deep asleep. And Beauty who had been waiting for his heavy sleeping breaths, slipped out of the bed, and on all fours, out of stealth, not obedience, crept into the corridor. She had lain for a long time looking at the door, seeing that it had never been really shut, and she might make her small escape without noise if she only had the courage.
She crept to the top of the steps.
The light fell full on Prince Alexi, and she could see that his organ was rigid as before, and Squire Felix was talking to him, softly. She could not hear what the Squire said, but she was furious to see him awake. She had hoped that he too would now be sleeping.
And as she watched, quite unknown to Squire Felix, she saw him come round in front of Prince Alexi, and torment the organ again with a volley of slaps that sounded very loud in the empty stairwell. The captive Prince gave a little moan, and Beauty could see his chest heave with his breath.
Squire Felix walked back and forth restlessly. Then he looked at the Prince, and it seemed he turned his head from left to right as though listening. Beauty held her breath. She was terrified she might be discovered.
Squire Felix drew near to Prince Alexi and putting his arms around his hips, he covered Prince Alexi’s organ with his mouth and began sucking it.
Beauty was beside herself with frustration and anger. This was just what she had meant to do. She had imagined herself braving all dangers to do it. And now she was forced to watch as Squire Felix tormented the poor Prince. But to her surprise, Squire Felix was not merely tantalizing Prince Alexi. Squire Felix seemed quite in earnest. He was ravaging the organ with a regular rhythm and Beauty knew from the moans that Prince Alexi couldn’t conceal he was now reaching the climax of his passion.
His taut, cruelly bound body shuddered with one protracted groan after another, and then he lay still as Squire Felix drew back and moved into the shadows.
It seemed he spoke to Prince Alexi then. Beauty leaned her head against the stone balustrade.
After a little while, Squire Felix told Prince Alexi to wake, and he gave the organ those tormenting slaps again and when it seemed reluctant, Squire Felix seemed fearful and became threatening. But Prince Alexi was deep asleep in his painful tethers, and Beauty was very pleased to see this.
She turned and silently made her way back to the bedroom door when she realized that someone was near her.
She was so frightened that she almost screamed, a mistake which would surely have destroyed her. But she covered her mouth, and lifting her eyes, she saw in the distant shadows the figure of Lord Gregory watching her. This was the gray-haired Lord who had wanted so to discipline her properly, who had called her spoilt.
Yet he did not move. He stood still watching her.
And when she had stopped trembling, she rushed as quickly as she could back to the Prince’s bed, and slipped under the coverlet beside him.
He had never awakened.
She lay in the dark waiting for Lord Gregory to come but he did not, and she soon realized he would not dream of waking the Prince, and then she was half dozing.
She was thinking of Prince Alexi in a thousand ways, of the redness of his sore flesh after the paddle, of his beautiful brown eyes, and his strong, somewhat compact body. She was thinking of his glossy hair against her, the secret kiss he gave her thighs, and how, after this terrible humiliation, he had given her that smile which was so serene and affectionate.
The torment between her legs was no worse than before, and no better. She dared not touch it with her fingers, lest she be discovered, and it was too shameful to think of such things, and she was sure the Prince would never allow it.
THE SLAVES’ HALL
IT WAS late afternoon when Beauty awoke. She realized that the Prince and Lord Gregory were in an argument. Immediately, she was afraid, but as she lay still she perceived that Lord Gregory had obviously not told the Prince what he had seen. Surely her punishment would be terrible if he had. Rather Lord Gregory was arguing only that Beauty must be taken to the Slaves’ Hall and properly groomed.
“Your Highness, you are enamored of her, of course,” Lord Gregory said, “but you remember, surely, your own censure of other Lords, especially your cousin, Lord Stefan, on account of his excessive love for his slave ...”
“It is not excessive love,” the Prince answered sharply, but then he stopped as if Lord Gregory had hit upon the truth. “Maybe you should take her to the Slaves’ Hall,” he murmured, “though only for the day.”
As soon as Lord Gregory had taken her out of the room, he unfastened the paddle attached to his belt and gave her several cruel spanks as she hurried on her hands and knees before him.
“Keep your eyes down and your head down,” he said coldly, “and lift your knees gracefully. Your back is to be a straight line at all times, and you are not to look to either side, is this clear to you?”
“Yes, my Lord,” Beauty answered timidly. She could see a great expanse of stone before her, and though the paddle smacks had not been very hard, she found she resented them enormously. They had not come from the Prince. And it was just coming to her that now she was in Lord Gregory’s power. Perhaps she’d fancied he couldn’t strike her, wouldn’t be allowed to, but that was obviously not the case, and she realized he might tell the Prince she had disobeyed when she had not, and she might not be allowed to speak for herself.
“Move faster,” he told her. “You are always to take a rapid pace showing your eagerness to please your Lords and Ladies,” he said, and again there came one of those sharp degrading little spanks that seemed suddenly quite worse than harder ones.
They had come to a narrow doorway and Beauty perceived that a long curving ramp lay before her. It was quite clever as she could not have gone down a staircase on her hands and knees, but this she could follow, and she did with Lord Gregory’s pointed leather boots right beside her.
Several times he availed himself of t
he paddle, so that by the time they reached the door of a vast room on the lower floor, her buttocks were burning a little.
But what concerned her much more was that there were people here.
She had seen no one in the passage above. And she felt torturously shy as she realized that there were many people in this hall moving about and talking to one another.
Now she was told to sit up and back on her heels, with her hands clasped to the back of her neck.
“This will always be your position when you are told to rest,” Lord Gregory said, “and keep your eyes down.”
Yet even as she obeyed this command, she could see what the room was. There were deep shelves cut into the walls all along three sides of it, and on these shelves, on pallets, slept the many slaves, both male and female.
But she could not see Prince Alexi.
She did see a beautiful black-haired girl with very plump little buttocks who appeared quite deep sleep, and a blond-haired young man who appeared to be strapped on his back, though she could not tell, and others, all of whom were in a drowsy state, if not dozing.
And before her were many tables in a row, and among them pots of steaming water from which came a delicious fragrance.
“This is where you will be bathed and groomed always,” said Lord Gregory in that same cold voice, “and when the Prince has had quite enough of sleeping with you as though you were his love, you shall sleep here too, and at any time when the Prince has no specific orders for you. Your groom is named Leon. He will care for you in all details, and to him you shall show the same respect and obedience you show to everyone.”
Beauty saw before her the slender figure of a young man, directly beside Lord Gregory. And as he drew nearer, Lord Gregory snapped his fingers and told her to show her respect.
At once Beauty kissed his boots.
“To the lowest scullery maid you owe this respect,” Lord Gregory said, “and should I ever detect the slightest haughtiness in you, I snail punish you severely. I am not as ... shall we say, impressed with you as is your Prince.”
“Yes, my Lord,” Beauty answered respectfully, but she was angry. She felt she had shown no haughtiness.
But Leon’s voice calmed her immediately. “Come, my dear,” he said, gesturing with a pat of his hand against his thigh for her to follow him, and it seemed Lord Gregory disappeared as Leon led her into a brick-lined alcove where a large wooden tub stood steaming. The scent of the herbs was very strong.
Leon gestured for her to rise up again, and taking her hands, he lifted them over her head and told her to kneel in the tub.
She climbed into it at once and felt the delicious warm water come almost up to her sex. Leon wrapped her hair in a circle on the back of her head and fixed it with several pins. She could see him clearly now. He was older than the Page boys, but just as fair, and his hazel eyes were very appealing in their gentleness. He told her to keep her hands behind her neck and that he was going to give her a thorough cleansing and that she must enjoy it.
“Are you very tired?” he asked her.
“Not so tired, my ...”
“My Lord will do,” he said with a smile. “Even the lowliest stable boy is your Lord, Beauty,” he said, “and you must always answer respectfully.”
“Yes, my Lord,” she whispered.
He was already bathing her, and the warm water washing down her did feel very good to her. He lathered her neck and her arms.
“Have you just awakened?”
“Yes, my Lord,” she said.
“I see, but you must be tired from your long journey. The first few days slaves are always overexcited. They don’t feel their exhaustion, and then after that they begin to sleep for many hours. You’ll feel it soon, and there will be an aching in your arms and legs, too. I don’t mean from your punishment. I mean only from your fatigue. When that happens I’ll massage you and soothe you.”
His voice was so gentle that Beauty warmed to him at once. His sleeves were rolled to the elbows and there was golden hair on his arms, and his fingers were very sure as he washed her ears and her face, careful not to get the soap in her eyes.
“And you have been punished very severely, haven’t you?”
Beauty blushed.
He laughed softly.
“Very good, my dear, you are learning already. Never answer such a question as that. It could be taken as a complaint if you did. Any time you are asked if you have been punished too much or suffered too much, or anything of that sort, be clever enough to blush.”
But even as he spoke almost affectionately, he began washing her breasts just as calmly as he had washed the rest of her, and Beauty’s blushes became more painful. She could feel her nipples harden, and she was certain though she could see nothing but the soapy water before her, that he was noticing this, as his hands slowed slightly, and then he pushed at her inner thigh gently. “Spread your legs, dearest,” he said.
She obeyed, kneeling with her legs farther apart, and then farther as he pushed her. He had become still, and now drying his hand on the towel at his waist, he touched her sex and she felt herself shudder.
Her sex was moist and swollen with her desire, and to her horror, his hand touched a small hard knot in which much of her craving was accumulated. She drew back involuntarily.
“Ah.” He withdrew his fingers, and turning called to Lord Gregory.
“A very lovely flower, this,” he said. “Have you observed?”
Beauty was crimson. Her eyes overflowed with tears. It took all her control not to drop her hands to cover her sex as she felt Leon part her legs even wider now and gently touch the moisture there.
Lord Gregory gave a soft laugh.
“Yes, a truly remarkable Princess,” he said. “I should have watched her more carefully.”
Beauty gave a little muffled sob of shame and yet the driving desire between her legs would not stop, and her face was stinging as Lord Gregory spoke to her.
“Most of our little Princesses are too frightened in the first few days to show such willingness to serve, Beauty,” he said in the same cold voice. “They must be awakened and educated. But I see you are very passionate and much enamored of your new masters and all they wish to teach you.”
Beauty struggled against her tears. This was more humiliating surely than anything that had happened to her.
And now Lord Gregory was taking her chin as the Prince had taken Prince Alexi’s chin and forcing her to look at him.
“Beauty, this is a great virtue in you. You have no cause to be ashamed. It only means that you must learn yet another form of discipline. You are awakened to the desires of your master as you should be, but you must learn to control that desire just as you see the male slaves control it.”
“Yes, my Lord,” Beauty whispered.
Leon withdrew and a moment later he returned with a small white tray on which were laid several little objects Beauty could not see.
But to her terror, Lord Gregory parted her legs and affixed to that little hard kernel of tormented flesh a plaster of sorts that covered it and adhered to it. He shaped it quickly with his fingers as if he did not wish to have Beauty enjoy this.
And Beauty was all the more relieved, for had she felt the ultimate pleasure, had she commenced to shudder and to blush with the final release from this torment, she would have been absolutely mortified.
But now the little plaster gave her an added torment. What could it mean?
It seemed Lord Gregory read her thoughts.
“That will prevent you from all too easily satisfying your newfound and undisciplined desire, Beauty. It will not alleviate it. It will merely prevent, shall we say, accidental release, until you have gained the proper control of yourself. I had not thought to commence this detailed instruction so soon, but I shall tell you now that you are never allowed to experience full pleasure save at the whims of your master or mistress. Never, never, must you be caught touching your private parts with your own hands, nor trying more secr
etly to alleviate your obvious ... misery.”
“Well-chosen words,” Beauty thought, “for all his coldness to me.”
But he was immediately gone, and once more Leon was bathing her.
“Don’t be so frightened and so ashamed,” he said. “You don’t realize what a great advantage it is. To be taught to feel such pleasure is very difficult, and far more humiliating. And your passion gives a bloom to you that cannot be achieved otherwise.”
Beauty cried softly. The little plaster between her legs made her all the more conscious of her feelings there. Yet Leon’s hands and voice were soothing her.
Finally he told her she must lie down in the bath and he must wash her long beautiful hair for her. She let the warm water close over her and thought for a moment that she was covered by it and that felt extremely good to her.
As soon as she had been rinsed and dried, Beauty was put down on one of the beds nearby, and arranged on her face so that Leon could rub an aromatic oil into her skin.
It felt delicious to her.
“Now, surely,” he said as he was massaging her shoulders, “there must be questions that you should like to ask me. You may do that if you like. It is not good for you to be confused about things unnecessarily. There is enough for you to fear without fears that are imaginary.”
“I may ... talk to you then?” Beauty asked.
“Yes,” he said. “I’m your groom. In a way, I belong to you. Each slave, no matter how he or she ranks or pleases or displeases, has a groom, and that groom is devoted to that slave, to that slave’s needs and wishes, as well as preparing the slave for the master. Now, of course, there will be times when I shall have to punish you, not because I take pleasure in it, though I can’t imagine punishing a more beautiful slave than you, but because your master may order it. He may order you punished for disobedience, or merely readied for him with some blows. But I will be doing it only because I have to ...”