Beauty's Punishment

by Ann Rice

  Beauty was amazed.

  Never at the castle had anyone spoken to her quite like this, quite this coldly and simply, and yet it seemed to have behind it some awesome practicality that almost made Beauty smile. Of course it was exactly what this woman should do, she reflected. Why not? If Beauty were running the Inn and had paid twenty-seven pieces of gold for a rebellious little slave, she might do the same thing.

  And of course she'd demand the slave twist and groan to display her understanding that she was being humbled, to exercise the slave's spirit thoroughly rather than simply flail away.

  The odd sense of normality came back to Beauty.

  She understood this cool shadowy Inn with the sunlight splashing on the cobblestones outside the door, and she understood full well the strange voice that spoke to her with such an air of aloof command. The sugar-coated language of the castle was cloying by comparison, and, yes, Beauty reasoned, for the moment anyway, she would obey, and she would twist and groan.

  After all, it was going to hurt, wasn't it? Abruptly she found out.

  The paddle slammed her, bringing forth effortlessly the first loud moan. It was a large thin wooden paddle with an unnervingly crisp sound when it smacked again, and in the hail of blows that stung her sore buttocks, Beauty found herself without a conscious decision suddenly writhing and crying, the tears springing freshly to her eyes. The paddle seemed to be making her twist and turn, tossing her about on the rude bar, slamming her buttocks and making them rise again. She felt the counter creak under her as her hips rose and fell. She felt her nipples rub against the wood. Yet she kept her tear-filled eyes on the open doorway, and lost as she was in the sound spanking of the paddle and the loud cries muffled by her sealed lips, she could not help but try to picture herself, wondering if Mistress Lockley were pleased with it, whether it was enough.

  Beauty heard her own full-throated moaning in her ears. She felt her tears sliding down her cheeks, to the wood. Her chin hurt as she rocked under the paddle, and she felt her long hair fall down around her shoulders, sheltering her face.

  The paddle was really hurting now, hurting her unbearably, and she was rising high off the board as if asking with her whole body, "Isn't it enough, Mistress, isn't it enough?" Never in all her trials at the castle had she so profuse a display of misery.

  The paddle stopped. A soft torrent of sobs filled the sudden silence, and humbly, Beauty squirmed against the counter as if imploring Mistress Lockley. Something brushed her sore buttocks very lightly, and behind her clenched teeth Beauty let out a little cry.

  "Very good," came the voice. "Now get up on your feet and stand before me with your legs spread apart. Now!"

  Beauty rushed to comply. She slipped down off the counter and stood with her legs as wide apart as she could spread them, her whole body shuddering with her sniffles and sobs.

  Without looking up, she could see the dim figure of Mistress Lockley with her arms folded, the white of her puff sleeves very bright in the shadows, the big oval wooden paddle in her hands.

  "Get down on your knees!" came the sharp command with a snap of the fingers. "And with those hands behind your neck, you put your chin on that floor and crawl to that far wall and back again, fast!"

  Beauty scurried to obey. It was miserable trying to crawl in this manner, with her elbows and chin on the floor, and she couldn't bear the thought of how awkward and miserable she looked, but she reached the wall and hurried back to Mistress Lockley's boots at once. On a wild impulse she kissed the boots. The throb between her legs intensified as if a fist had been pressed against her sex and Beauty almost gasped. If she could only press her legs closer together... but Mistress Lockley would see and never forgive.

  "Kneel up," Mistress Lockley ordered, and grabbing hold of Beauty's hair, she wrapped it in a circle on the back of Beauty's head. With pins from her pockets, she fastened it.

  Then she snapped her fingers: "Prince Roger," she said, "bring that bucket and scrub brush here."

  The black-haired Prince obeyed at once, moving with a quiet elegance, though he was on his hands and knees, and Beauty saw that his buttocks were raw and red as though he too had known the discipline of the wooden paddle not too long ago. He kissed the Mistress's boots, his dark eyes quite open and direct, and retreated through the back door to the yard at her gesture. The black hair was thick around the little pink mouth of his anus, his small buttocks rather exquisitely round for those of a man.

  "Now you're to take that brush in your teeth and you're to scrub the floor with it, starting here and back to there," said Mistress Lockley coolly. "You are to get it good and clean. And you're to keep your legs wide apart when you do it. If I see those legs together, if I see you rubbing that hungry little mouth against the floor or touching it, you're to dangle, is that understood?"

  Beauty kissed the Mistress's boots again immediately.

  "Very good," said the Mistress. "The soldiers tonight will pay high for that tight little sex. They'll feed it well enough. For now, you'll hunger in obedience and humility, and you'll do as I say."

  Beauty went to work at once with the brush, scrubbing hard at the tile floor with a back-and-forth motion of her head. Her sex ached almost as much as her buttocks, but as she worked the ache grew fainter and fainter, and Beauty's head was strangely clear.

  What would happen, she wondered, if the soldiers adored her, paid plenty for her, fed her little sex to overflowing so to speak, and then Beauty were disobedient? Could Mistress Lockley afford to hang her outside?

  "I'm turning into such a bad little girl!" she thought.

  But the strange part of it was that her heart beat fast at the thought of Mistress Lockley. She liked her coldness and her sharpness in a way she had never liked her fawning Mistress of the castle, Lady Juliana. And she couldn't help but wonder, was there just a smidgen of pleasure in it for Mistress Lockley, all that paddling? After all, Mistress Lockley did it so well.

  She was scrubbing away as she thought, trying to make the brown tiles of the floor as shiny and clean as she could, when she suddenly realized that a shadow had fallen over her from the open door. And she heard Mistress Lockley's voice say softly, "Ah, Captain."

  Beauty raised her eyes cautiously but boldly nevertheless, fully aware it might be impudence to do. And she saw a blond-haired man standing above her. His leather boots went up well over his knees, and a jeweled dagger was buckled to his thick leather belt as well as broadsword and a long leather paddle. He seemed bigger to her all over than the men she had known in this Kingdom, yet he was slender of build except for his massive shoulders. His yellow hair hung luxuriously long down his neck, curling thickly at the ends, and his brilliant green eyes were crinkled with laugh lines as he looked down at her.

  She felt a stab of dismay, though she didn't know why, a sudden melting of the coldness and toughness that affected her. And with calculated indifference she went back to her scrubbing.

  But the man came round in front of her.

  "I didn't expect you so soon," Mistress Lockley said. "Tonight I thought surely you'd bring the whole garrison."

  "Most definitely, Mistress," he said. His voice was almost lustrous. Beauty felt a peculiar tightness in her throat and scrubbed on, trying to ignore the softly wrinkled calfskin boots in front of her.

  "I saw this little partridge auctioned off," said the Captain. And Beauty flushed as the man made an obvious circle around her. "Quite the little rebel," he said. "I was surprised you paid so much for her."

  "I have a way with rebels, Captain," said Mistress Lockley in her iron-cold voice without either pride or humor. "And she's an exceptionally succulent little partridge. I thought you might enjoy her tonight."

  "Scrub her and send her up to my room now," said the Captain. "I don't think I want to wait until this evening."

  Beauty turned her head, deliberately shooting a harsh glance at the Captain. Brazenly handsome he seemed, with a blond stubble of beard on his chin as if his face had been brushed w
ith gold dust. And the sun had left its mark on him, deeply tanning his skin so that his golden eyebrows and his white teeth seemed all the brighter. He had his gloved hand on his hip, and as Mistress Lockley told her frostily to drop her eyes, he only smiled at Beauty's insolence.

  PRINCE ROGER'S STRANGE LITTLE STORY

  Beauty was lifted to her feet roughly by Mistress Lockley, who, twisting Beauty's wrists behind her back, forced her out the back door into a large grassy yard of heavy-limbed fruit trees.

  In an open shed on smooth wooden shelves half a dozen naked slaves slept as deeply and easily, it seemed, as they had in the more sumptuous Slaves' Hall in the castle. But a crude woman with her sleeves rolled up had another slave standing in a hogshead of soapy water, the slave's hands tethered to an overhanging tree branch. The slave was being scrubbed by the woman as coarsely as if he were salted meat for supper.

  Almost before she knew what was happening, Beauty had been forced to stand in such a tub, the soapy water swirling about her knees, and as her hands were tied to the branch of the fig tree above, she heard Mistress Lockley call for Prince Roger.

  At once the Prince appeared, upright this time, with the scrubbing brush in his hand, and he went to work on Beauty immediately, covering her with the warm water and scrubbing at her elbows and her knees, and then at her head, as he turned her this way and that very rapidly.

  It was all necessity here, and there was no luxury to it. Beauty winced as the brush scrubbed between her legs, and she moaned when the harsh bristles ground at her welts and bruises.

  Mistress Lockley was gone. The heavy woman had spanked the poor whimpering scrubbed slave back to bed and disappeared herself into the Inn. And the yard, save for the sleeping ones, was empty.

  "Will you answer me if I speak?" Beauty whispered. The Prince's dark skin was waxy smooth against her own as he tilted her head back and poured the pitcher of warm water over her hair. He had cheerful eyes now that they were alone.

  "Yes, but be very careful! We'll be sent off for Public Punishment if we're caught. And I loathe amusing the common louts of the town at the Public Turntable."

  "But why are you here?" Beauty said. "I thought I came with the first slaves to be sent down from the castle."

  "I've been in the village for years," he said. "I scarcely remember the castle. I was sentenced for sneaking off with a Princess. We hid for two full days before they found us!" he smiled. "But I'll never be summoned back."

  Beauty was shocked. She remembered her stolen night near the Queen's very bedchamber with Prince Alexi.

  "And what happened to her?" Beauty asked.

  "O, she was in the village for a while and then she went back to the castle. She became a great favorite of the Queen. And when it was time for her to be sent home, she remained to live here as a Lady."

  "You can't be speaking the truth!" Beauty said in amazement.

  "O, yes. She became one of the Court. She even rode down to see me in her new finery and asked if I should like to come back and be her slave. The Queen would allow it, she said, because she promised to punish me quite hard and drive me relentlessly. She'd be the wickedest Mistress a slave ever had, she said. I was quite stunned, as you can well imagine. Last time I'd seen her, she was naked, turned over her Master's knee. And now she rode a white horse and wore a gorgeous gown of black velvet trimmed in gold and her hair was braided with gold, and she was ready to have me packed naked over her saddle. I broke and ran away from her, and she had the Captain of the Guard bring me back and she paddled me over her horse right out in the square before a crowd of the villagers. She enjoyed herself immensely."

  "How could she do such a thing?" Beauty was outraged. "Did you say she wore her hair in braids?"

  "Yes," he said. "I hear she never wears it free. It reminds her too much of when she was a slave."

  "She's not Lady Juliana!"

  "Yes, that's exactly who she is. How did you know?"

  "She was my tormentor at the castle, my Mistress as surely as the Crown Prince was my Master," Beauty said. How well she could see Lady Juliana's lovely face, and those thick braids. How often had Beauty run from her paddle along the Bridle Path? "O, how dreadful of her!" she said. "But what happened after that? How did you manage to escape her?"

  "I told you I broke and ran from her, and the Captain of the Guard had to bring me back. It was clear I was not ready to return to the castle." He laughed. "She begged and pleaded for me, I'm told. And promised to tame me herself with no help from anyone."

  "Monster!" Beauty said.

  The Prince dried her arms and her face. "Step out of the tub," he said, "and be quiet. I think Mistress Lockley is in the kitchen." Then he added in a whisper, "Mistress Lockley wouldn't let me go. But Juliana isn't the first slave to remain and become a terror. Maybe someday you'll face the choice and suddenly have the paddle in your hands, and all those naked bottoms at your mercy. Think of it," he said, his dark face crinkling with a good-natured laugh.

  "Never!" Beauty gasped.

  "Well, we must hurry. The Captain's waiting."

  The image of Lady Juliana naked with Roger flared bright in Beauty's mind. How she would love just once to turn Lady Juliana over her knee! She felt a hard stirring between her legs. But what was she thinking? The mere mention of the Captain caused in her an immediate weakness. She had no paddle in her hands and no one at her mercy. She was a bad, naked slave, about to be sent to a hardened soldier with an obvious taste for rebels. And envisioning that sun-browned handsome face and the deep gleaming eyes, she thought, "If I'm such a bad girl, then I shall act like one."

  THE CAPTAIN OF THE GUARD

  Mistress Lockley had come out of the door. She untied Beauty's hands and dried her hair roughly. Then she pinioned Beauty's wrists behind her back and forced her into the Inn and up a narrow curved wooden stair behind the giant fireplace. Beauty could feel the warmth of the chimney through the wall, but she was marched upstairs so fast she scarcely felt anything.

  Mistress Lockley opened a small heavy oak door and forced Beauty down on her knees in the room, pitching her forward so that she had to put out her hands to catch herself.

  "There she is, my handsome Captain," she said.

  Beauty heard the door close behind her. She knelt, still uncertain of what she meant to do, her heart racing as she saw the familiar calfskin boots and the glow of the little fire on the hearth, and the large wooden paneled bed under the sloped ceiling. The Captain sat in a heavy armchair beside a long dark wood table.

  But as she waited, he gave no orders.

  Rather, she felt his hand gathering the length of her hair and lifting her by it, so that she had to crawl forward a little and then kneel up in front of him. She stared at him with astonished eyes, seeing again that brazenly handsome face and luxuriant blond hair of which he was surely vain, and the green eyes deep set in the sunbrowned skin meeting her stare with the same intensity.

  A terrible weakness came over her. Something within her softened completely and the softness seemed to grow, infecting all of her heart and spirit. Quickly she shut it off. But some understanding was just coming to her...

  The Captain lifted her to her feet, her hair wound around his left hand. Towering over her, he kicked her legs wide apart.

  "You will show yourself to me," he said with the barest trace of a smile, and before she could think of what to do, he let her hair go and she was standing free and a wave of humiliation passed over her.

  He sank down in the chair again quite confident of her obedience. And her heart thudded so loudly she wondered if he could hear it.

  "Put your hands between your legs, and part your private lips. I wish to see your endowments."

  A scarlet blush burned her face. She stared at him and didn't move. Now her heart was racing.

  And in an instant he had risen, imprisoned her wrists, lifting her and seating her hard upon the wooden table. He bent her back, her wrists pushed against her spine, and forced her legs wide apart with h
is knee as he looked down at her.

  She didn't flinch or look away, but gazed right into his face as she felt his gloved fingers doing what he had commanded her to do, spreading the lips of her vagina wide, and now he looked down at it.

  She struggled, twisted, tried desperately to free herself, the fingers prying her wide apart, pinching hard at her clitoris. She felt the color scalding her face, and she rocked her hips in open rebellion. But under the rough leather casing of his gloves, her clitoris hardened, grew large, bursting over his thumb and forefinger.

  She was gasping, and she had turned her face away, and when she heard him unfastening his breeches and felt the hard tip of his cock against her thigh, she moaned and lifted her hips in offering.

  At once the cock was driving inside of her. It filled her so completely that she felt the hot, wet pubic hair of the Captain sealing her closed and felt his hands under her sore buttocks as he lifted her.

  He carried her away from the table as her arms wound around his neck and her legs about his waist, and with his hands he worked her back and forth on his thrusting cock, lifting her as she almost cried out and then forcing her down on the full length of the organ. Harder and harder he worked her, and she did not even realize that he was cradling her head in his right hand or that he had turned her face up or that he had forced his tongue into her mouth. She felt only the jarring explosions of pleasure washing through her loins and then her mouth clamped shut on his and her body was taut and weightless, being lifted and brought down, lifted and brought down, until with a loud cry, an indecent cry, she felt the final shattering orgasm.