by Anne Rice
“Out of the question, dear Prince. In the complex exchanges between great powers, some things must be sacrificed. And it violates no agreements. You were sent to serve, and serve you shall, in the Palace of the Sultan. And have no doubt, you will be treasured by your new Masters. Though the Sultan has many slaves from his own land, you captive Princes and Princesses are a special delicacy of sorts, and a great curiosity.”
I was too angry and defeated to speak further. It was hopeless. Nothing I said made any difference. I was imprisoned like a creature of the wild, and my mind lapsed into miserable silence.
“I did what I could,” said the Lord, his eyes including the others now as he stepped back.
Dmitri was awake and leaning on his elbow as he listened.
“I was ordered to obtain an apology for the raid,” the Lord went on, “and a stiff indemnity. I got more gold than I expected.” He was going to the door. His hand was on the latch. “Two years, Prince, that’s not so long,” he said to me. “And when you return, your knowledge and experience will prove of inestimable value at the castle.”
“My Master!” I said suddenly. “Nicolas, the Chronicler. Tell me at least, was he harmed in the raid?”
“He’s quite alive and, in all probability, fast at work at his written account of the raid for her Majesty. He grieves bitterly for you. But nothing can be done. Now I must leave you. Be brave and be clever, clever at pretending you are not clever, that you are no more than the most abject little bundles of ever-demonstrable passion.”
And he left us immediately.
We all remained quiet, hearing the distant shouts of the sailors above. Then we felt the sea surge sluggishly as the other craft pulled away from us.
And the giant ship was moving again, fast, as if at full sail, and I slumped back against the cool gold bars and stared forward.
“Don’t be sad, my darling,” Beauty said as she peered at me, her long hair veiling her breasts, the light glinting on her polished limbs. “It’s only the same whirlwind.”
I turned over and stretched out, despite the uncomfortable metal between my legs, and rested my head against my arms, and for a long time I wept in silence.
Finally, when my tears had dried themselves, I heard Beauty’s voice again.
“I know you’re thinking of your Master,” she said gently. “But, Tristan, remember your own words.”
I sighed against my arm.
“Remind me, Beauty,” I asked quietly.
“That your whole existence is but an entreaty to be dissolved in the will of others. And so it goes on, Tristan, and we move deeper and deeper, all of us, into that dissolution.”
“Yes, Beauty,” I said softly.
“It’s but another turn of the wheel,” she said, “and we understand now more keenly what we have always known, since we were made captives.”
“Yes,” I said, “that we belong to others.”
And I turned my head to look up at her. The position of the cages wouldn’t allow us to touch more than our fingertips if we tried, and it was better just to see her pretty face and her luscious little arms as she held the bars still.
“It’s true,” I said. “You’re right.” And I felt a tightening in my chest and the old familiar awareness of my helplessness, not as a Prince, but as a slave, entirely dependent on the whims of new and unknown Masters.
And gazing at her face, I felt the first stirring of the wonder that was kindled in her eyes. We did not know what torments or rapture lay ahead of us.
Dmitri had turned and gone back into his slumbers. So had Laurent below.
And Beauty stretched again like a cat and lay down on the silken mattress.
The door opened and the young silk-clad attendants came in—six of them, one for each slave, it seemed—and they approached the cages, offering, as they unlocked the doors, a warm, aromatic drink, which surely contained another welcome sleeping potion.
VOLUPTUOUS CAPTIVITY
IT WAS night when Beauty awoke. Turning on her belly she saw stars through a tiny grated window. The great craft creaked and hummed as it rode the waves.
But she was being gathered up, taken from the cage, her dreams not yet dissipated, and laid down upon a giant cushion again, this time atop a long table.
Candles blazed. She could smell the heavy perfume of incense. And from far away came a rich and vibrant music.
The lovely young men surrounded her, rubbing the golden oil into her skin, smiling down at her as they worked, stretching her arms up and back, training her fingers to hold tight again to the edge of the cushion. And she saw a brush dipping down to color her nipples carefully with glittering gold pigment. She was too shocked to make a sound. She lay still as her lips were also painted. Then the soft hairs of the brush skillfully lined her eyes with the gold, stroking it onto her eyelashes. Great jeweled earrings were shown to her and, with a little gasp, she felt her earlobes stabbed, but her silent smiling captors hastened to shush and console her. The earrings dangled from the tiny burning wounds and the pain dissolved as she felt her legs drawn apart and a bowl of brightly colored, glistening fruits was held above her. The little armor of mesh was removed from her sex and tender fingers patted and stroked her until her sex awakened. Then she gazed into the same lovely olive-skinned face of the man who had first greeted her. Her attendant, he must be. And she saw that he was taking the fruit from the bowl—dates, pieces of melon and peach, tiny pears, dark red berries—and that he was carefully dipping each piece in a silver cup of honey.
Her legs were stretched wide apart and she realized the honeyed fruit was being placed inside of her. Her well-taught sex tightened irresistibly as the silky fingers forced the quartered melon deep within, and the next piece, and the next, bringing stronger and stronger flushes and sighs from her.
She couldn’t keep from moaning, but this her captors seemed to approve. They nodded, their smiles growing ever brighter. She was filled with the fruit. She felt it bulging from her. And now she was shown the glistening bunch of ripe grapes that was laid between her legs. And a lovely sprig of white flowers was dangled over her face, and her mouth was opened and the sprig laid between her teeth, the waxy petals fluttering against her cheeks and chin every so slightly.
She tried not to bite down on the stem, merely to hold it firmly. Her underarms were being painted thickly with honey. And something, a plump date perhaps, was being pressed into her naval. Jeweled bracelets went about her wrists. She was being fitted with heavy anklets. She undulated almost irresistibly on the pillow as the tension mounted in her, the vague infatuation with the smiling faces. And she knew fear, too, as she felt herself slowly transformed into an astonishing ornament.
But she was left alone with the urgent caution to be very still and silent.
And she heard other quick preparations in the room, heard other soft sighs, and she could almost make out the tempo of a heart beating anxiously near her.
Finally her captors appeared again. She was lifted on the great thick cushion, like a treasure. The music grew louder as she was carried up the steps, the walls of her sex clamping against the enormous filling of fruit, the honey and the juices trickling out of her. The gold paint dried on her nipples, tightening the skin. On every inch of her flesh she felt some new stimulation.
Into a large chamber she was brought, the light soft and shimmering. The incense was intoxicating. The air pulsed with the rhythm of tambourines, the strumming of harps, the high metallic notes of other instruments. Over her head the draped cloth of the ceiling came alive with its hundreds of tiny fragments of mirrored glass, glittering beads, intricate gold patterns.
She was set down on the floor again and, turning her head helplessly, saw the musicians far to her left and, directly beside her on her right, her new Masters sitting cross-legged as they banqueted from large dishes of delicious-smelling food, their robes and turbans of ornately embroidered silk, their eyes darting to her now and then as they spoke to one another in rapid muted voices.
She writhed on the pillow, holding the edges tight, keeping her legs well apart as she had been taught so well to do at the village and the castle. And her silent fearful attendants, cautioning her, imploring her, with dire looks and fingers to the lips, again withdrew to the shadows where they stood to watch over her unnoticed by those who feasted.
“Ah, what is this strange world into which I’ve been reborn?” she thought, the fruit swelling against the stricture of her heated vagina. She felt her hips ride up from the silk, the earrings throb in her ears. The conversation went on in a natural current, now and then one of the dark-turbaned Lords smiling at her before he spoke again to the others.
But another figure had appeared. Something in the corner of her eye, to the left. She saw it was Tristan.
He was being brought in on his hands and knees, by a long gold chain affixed to a jewel-encrusted collar. And he too was polished with gold oil, his nipples gilded. His thick bush of pubic hair was dotted with tiny sparkling jewels and his erect cock glistened under its thin gold burnishing. His ears were pierced not with dangling earrings but with single rubies. And the hair of his head was parted in the middle and had been beautifully brushed with gold dust. Gilt paint lined his eyes, thickened his lashes, defined the startling perfection of his mouth. And his violet-blue eyes burned with an iridescent radiance.
His lips moved in a half-smile as he was led towards her. He didn’t seem sad or afraid, rather lost in his desire to do the bidding of the pretty black-haired angel who led him. And as the dark-skinned one guided him to straddle Beauty, pressing his head down to her left underarm until his face touched the honey, he began to lap it.
Beauty sighed, feeling the hard wet pressure of his licking tongue on the rounded curve of her flesh. And her eyes grew wide as he cleaned away the liquid, his hair tickling her face, and then bent to feed upon the right underarm just as greedily.
He seemed an alien god leaning over her, his painted face like something from the very depth of her unavowed dreams, his powerful arms and shoulders polished to a magnificent luster.
With a tug of the fragile gold chain, the lithe, long-fingered guide drew him down now, lowering his gleaming head until, eagerly, he took the honeyed date from her naval.
Beauty’s hips and belly rose sharply at the touch of his lips and teeth, the moan breaking from her, the flowers in her mouth shuddering against her cheeks. And as if through a haze, she saw her distant attendants smiling, nodding, coaxing.
Tristan knelt between her legs. And this time the attendant did not have to guide his head. With an almost savage gesture, Tristan gnawed at the dressing of fruit, the soft pressure of his jaws against her pubis maddening her.
He consumed the grapes, and, his mouth pressed to her pubic lips, he grasped with his teeth the thick chunks of melon.
Beauty writhed, clutched at the pillow. Her hips rose uncontrollably. Tristan’s mouth ground deeper into her, teeth biting at her clitoris, licking it, as he extracted more of the fruit. And in a fury of rocking, undulating movements, Beauty pushed with all her might to offer it to him.
The conversation in the room had died away. The music was low and rhythmic and almost haunting. And her own moans grew into openmouthed gasps as the distant young men beamed proudly.
Tristan’s jaws worked against her, emptying her. And now he lapped the juices from between her legs, his tongue coming up in broad wet strokes to her clitoris again slowly.
She knew her face was blood red. Her nipples were two aching little kernels.
She undulated so violently that her buttocks rose off the pillow.
But with a wrenching moan of disappointment, she saw Tristan’s head rise. The little chain was being jerked. She sobbed softly.
Yet it was not over! He was being brought up beside her and artfully turned around, and positioned over her again, his cock descending to her lips as his mouth opened wide to cover her entire pubis. She raised her head, licking at his cock, trying to catch it in the clamp of her lips, and capturing it suddenly, pulled it lower as she raised her shoulders.
Frantically, she sucked it to the root, the sweet taste of honey and cinnamon mingling with the hot salty smell of Tristan’s flesh, her hips riding fast on the cushion as Tristan sucked on the tiny knot between her legs, turning his mouth to close up her thick and pulsing lips with his teeth, his tongue lapping the honey that squeezed out from them.
Groaning, almost crying, Beauty nursed from the cock, her head dangling from it, her mouth contracting in time with the spasms between his legs as she felt him suck with sudden violent strength at her clitoris and the mound above it. And as the fiery shimmering orgasm inundated her, bringing forth her loudest moaning sighs, she felt his come overflow into her.
Locked together they struggled, and around them in the crowded tent, there was only silence. She saw nothing. She had no thoughts. She felt Tristan slip away. She heard the low rumble of voices again. She knew that the cushion had been lifted and she was being carried.
They were moving down the steps, and all around her in the room of the cages there was low excited chatter, the angelic attendants laughing and talking in hushed voices as they set the cushion down on a low table.
Then Beauty was helped to her knees and she saw Tristan kneeling right in front of her. His arms went around her neck, her arms were guided around his waist, and she felt his legs against her legs, his hand pressing her face to his chest as she gazed at the angelic ones who, gathering closer and closer, stroked Beauty and Tristan and kissed them all over.
Beauty saw in the gloom the soft serene faces of the other Princes and Princesses, watching.
But her lovely captors had taken down the painted paddles from her cage and from Tristan’s, flashing these exquisite articles in the light so that Beauty saw the intricacy of the ornate curlicues and flowers, and the pale blue ribbons streaming from the handles.
Beauty’s head was pulled back gently and the paddle put before her face, touched to her lips so that she kissed it. Above her, Tristan did the same, his lips in that same half-smile as the paddle was withdrawn and he looked down at her.
He clutched her hard as the first stinging slaps came, his strong body obviously trying to contain the little shocks of the spanks as she moaned and twisted under them as Mistress Lockley taught her. All around was the bright airy laughter of the attendants. Tristan kissed her hair, his hands feverishly kneading her flesh as she pressed tighter and tighter to him, her breasts crushed against his chest, her hands spread out on his back, her writhing buttocks flooded with tingling warmth, the old welts little knots under the paddle. Tristan could no longer keep still, the moans coming deep in his chest, his cock rising between her legs, the broad wet tip slipping into her. Her knees left the cushion. Her upturned mouth found Tristan’s mouth, as their jubilant captors redoubled the strength of the spanks, eager hands pressing Tristan and Beauty ever tighter together.
Sequel to follow:
In which we learn about
the adventures
of Beauty and Tristan
in the
Palace of the Sultan.
