by Anne Rice
New sheets and coverlets had been laid on the bed; there were fresh down pillows, and roses in a vase nearby, and several candelabra.
“Now,” he said as he rose and set her before him. “We must get to bed as we have a long journey before us tomorrow. And I have still to punish you for your earlier impertinence.”
Immediately the tears stood in her eyes; she looked up at him imploring. She almost reached to cover her breasts and her sex, and then remembering herself she made her hands into two little helpless fists at her sides.
“I won’t punish you very much,” he said gently, lifting her chin. “It was just a little offense, and your first after all. But Beauty, to confess the truth, I shall love punishing you.”
She was biting her lip, and he could see she wanted to speak, and the effort to control her tongue and her hands was almost too much for her.
“All right, lovely one, what do you want to say?” he asked.
“Please, my Prince,” she begged. “I’m so afraid of you.”
“You’ll find me more reasonable than you expect,” he said.
He removed his long cloak, tossing it over a chair, and bolted the door. Then he snuffed all but a few candles.
He would sleep in his clothes as he did most nights, in the forest, or in the country inns, or in the houses of those humble peasants at which he sometimes stopped, and that was no great inconvenience to him.
And as he drew near her now, he thought he must be merciful and make her punishment quick. And seating himself on the side of the bed, he reached out for her, and pulling her wrists into his left hand he brought her naked body down over his lap so that her legs dangled over the floor helplessly.
“Very, very lovely,” he said, his right hand moving languidly over her rounded buttocks, forcing them ever so slightly apart.
Beauty was crying aloud, but muffling her cries into the bed, her hands held out in front of her by his long left arm.
And now with his right hand he spanked her buttocks hard and heard her cries grow louder. It wasn’t really much of a slap.
But it left a red mark on her. And he spanked her hard again, and he felt her writhing against him, the heat and moisture of her sex against his leg, and again he spanked her.
“I think you are sobbing more from the humiliation than the pain,” he scolded her in a soft voice.
She was struggling not to make her cries too loud.
He flattened out his right hand, and feeling the heat of her reddened buttocks drew it up and delivered another series of hard, loud slaps, smiling as he watched her struggle.
He could have spanked her much harder, for his own pleasure, and without really hurting her. But he thought the better of it. He had so many nights ahead of him for these delights.
He lifted her up now so that she was standing in front of him.
“Toss your hair back,” he commanded. Her tear-stained face was unspeakably beautiful, her lips trembling, her blue eyes gleaming with the dampness of the tears. She obeyed immediately.
“I don’t think you were so very spoilt,” he said. “I find you very obedient and eager to please, and this makes me very happy.”
He could see her relief.
“Clasp your hands behind your neck,” he said, “under your hair. That’s it. Very good.” He lifted her chin again. “And you have a lovely modest habit of looking down. But now I want you to look directly at me.”
She obeyed shyly, miserably. It seemed she felt her nakedness and her helplessness more fully now as she looked at him. Her lashes were matted and dark, and her blue eyes larger than he had thought.
“Do you find me handsome?” he asked her. “Ah, but before you answer, I should like to know the truth from you, not what you think I should like to hear, or what would be best for you to say, you understand me?”
“Yes, my Prince,” she whispered. She seemed calmer.
He reached out, massaged her right breast lightly, and then stroked her downy underarms, feeling the little curve of the muscle there beneath the tiny wisp of golden hair, and then he stroked that full, moist hair between her legs so that she sighed and trembled.
“Now,” he said, “answer my question, and describe what you see. Describe me as if you had only just met me and were confiding in your chambermaid.”
Again she bit her lip, which he dearly loved, and then, her voice a little diminished by uncertainty, she said:
“You are very handsome, my Prince, no one could deny that. And for one ... for one ...”
“Go on,” he said. He drew her just a little closer so that her sex was against his knee, and putting his right arm about her, he cradled her breast in his left hand and let his lips touch her cheek.
“And for one so young to be so commanding,” she said, “it’s not what one might expect.”
“And tell me how does that show itself in me, other than my actions?”
“Your manner, my Prince,” she said, her voice gaining a little strength. “The look of your eyes, such dark eyes ... your face. There are none of the doubts of youth in it.”
He smiled and kissed her ear. He wondered why the wet little cleft between her legs was so very hot. His fingers could not keep from touching it. Twice already he’d had her today, and he would have her again, but he was thinking he should go about it more slowly.
“Would you like it if I were older?” he whispered.
“I had thought,” she said, “that it would be easier. To be commanded by one so very young,” she said, “is to feel one’s helplessness.”
It seemed the tears had welled up and were spilling out of her eyes, so he pushed her gently back so he might see them.
“My darling, I have awakened you from a century’s sleep, and restored you father’s Kingdom. You’re mine. And you won’t find me such a hard master. Only a very thorough master. When you think night and day and every moment only of pleasing me, things will be very easy for you.”
And as she struggled not to look away, he could see again the relief in her face, and that she was in complete awe of him.
“Now,” he said, pushing his left fingers between her legs, and drawing her close again so that she let out a little gasp before she could stop herself, “I want more of you than I’ve had before. Do you know what I mean, my Sleeping Beauty?”
She shook her head; for this moment she was in terror.
He lifted her up onto the bed and laid her down.
The candles threw a warm, almost rosy light over her. Her hair fell down on either side of the bed, and she seemed on the verge of crying out, her hands struggling to keep still at her sides.
“My darling, you have a dignity about you that shields you from me, much like your lovely golden hair shrouds you and shields you. Now I want you to surrender to me. You’ll see, and you’ll be very surprised that you wept when I first suggested it.”
The Prince bent over her. He parted her legs. He could see the battle she fought not to cover herself or turn away from him. He stroked her thighs. Then with his finger and thumb, he reached into the silky damp hair itself and felt those tender little lips and forced them very wide open.
Beauty gave a terrible shudder. With his left hand he covered her mouth, and behind his hand she cried softly. It seemed easier for her with him covering her mouth and that was all right for now, he thought. She shall be taught everything in time.
And with his right fingers, he found that tiny nodule of flesh between her tender nether lips and he worked it back and forth until she raised her hips, arching her back, in spite of herself. Her little face under his hand was the picture of distress. He smiled to himself.
But even as he smiled, he felt the hot fluid between her legs for the first time, the real fluid which had not come before with her innocent blood. “That’s it, that’s it, my darling,” he said. “And you mustn’t resist your Lord and master, hmmmm?”
Now he opened his clothing and took out his hard, eager sex, and mounting her he let it rest against her t
high as he continued to stroke her and work her.
She was twisting from one side to the other, her hands gathering up the soft sheets at her sides into knots, and it seemed her whole body grew pink, and the nipples of her breasts looked as hard as if they were tiny stones. He could not resist them.
He bit at them with his teeth, playfully, not hurting her. He licked them with his tongue, and then he licked her sex, too, and as she struggled, and blushed and moaned beneath him, he mounted her, slowly.
Again she arched her back. Her breasts were suffused with red. And as he drove his organ into her, he felt her shudder violently with unwilling pleasure.
An awful cry was muffled by the hand over her mouth; she was shuddering so violently it seemed she all but lifted him on top of her.
And then she lay still, moist, pink, with her eyes closed, breathing deeply as the tears flowed silently.
“That was lovely, my darling,” he said. “Open your eyes.”
She did it timidly.
But then she lay looking up at him.
“This has been so hard for you,” he whispered. “You could not even imagine these things happening to you. And you are red with shame, and shaking with fear, and you believe perhaps it’s one of the dreams you dreamed in your hundred years. But it’s real, Beauty,” he said. “And it is only the beginning! You think I’ve made you my Princess. But I’ve only started. The day will come when you can see nothing but me as if I were the sun and the moon, when I mean all to you, food, drink, the air you breathe. Then you will truly be mine, and these first lessons ... and pleasures ...” he smiled, “will seem like nothing.”
He bent over her. She lay so very still, gazing up at him.
“Now kiss me,” he commanded. “And I mean, really ... kiss me.”
THE JOURNEY AND THE PUNISHMENT AT THE INN
THE NEXT morning all the Court was gathered in the Great Hall to see the Prince off, and all of the Court, including the grateful King and Queen, stood with their eyes down, bowing from the waist as the Prince came down the steps with the naked Beauty walking behind him. He had commanded her to clasp her hands on the back of her neck beneath her hair, and to walk just a little to his right so that he might see her in the corner of his eye. And she obeyed, her bare feet making not the slightest sound on the worn stone steps as she followed him.
“Dear Prince,” said the Queen, when he reached the great front door and saw that his soldiers stood mounted on the drawbridge, “we are in your eternal debt, but she is our only daughter.”
The Prince turned to look at her. She was yet beautiful, though more than twice Beauty’s age, and he wondered if she too had served his great-grandfather.
“How can you question me?” the Prince asked patiently. “I have restored your Kingdom, and you know full well if you remember anything of the ways of my land, that Beauty will be much enhanced by her service there.”
Then the telltale blush came to the Queen as it had to the King before, and she bowed her head in acceptance.
“But surely you will allow Beauty some clothing,” she whispered, “at least until she reaches the border of your Kingdom.”
“All those towns between here and my Kingdom have owed their allegiance to us for a century. And in each I will proclaim your restoration and new dominion. Can you ask for more than that? The spring is warm already; Beauty shall suffer no ill effects from serving me immediately.”
“Forgive us, your Highness,” the King hastened to say. “But is it the same in this age? Beauty’s servitude will not be forever?”
“It is the same now as it was always. Beauty will be returned in time. And she shall be greatly enhanced in wisdom and beauty. Now, tell her to obey as your parents commanded you to obey when you were sent to us.”
“The Prince speaks the truth, Beauty,” the King said in a low voice, still unwilling to look at his daughter. “Obey him. Obey the Queen. And though you find your servitude surprising and difficult at times, be confident you will return, as he says, greatly changed for the better.”
The Prince smiled.
The horses were restless on the drawbridge. The Prince’s charger, a black stallion, was particularly hard to restrain, so the Prince, bidding them all farewell again, turned and picked up Beauty.
He heaved her easily over his right shoulder, clasping her ankles to his waist, and heard her cry out softly as she fell over his back. He could see her long hair sweep the ground just before he mounted the stallion.
All the soldiers fell into place behind him.
He rode into the forest.
The sun spilled down in glorious rays through the heavy green leaves, the sky now brilliant and blue overhead only to vanish in a shifting green-tinted light as the Prince rode on at the head of his soldiers, humming to himself, and now and then singing.
Beauty’s lithe, warm body swayed slightly over his shoulder. He could feel her trembling, and he understood her agitation. Her naked buttocks were still red from the spanking he had given her, and he could well imagine the succulent vision she was to the men who rode after him.
As he walked his horse through a dense glade where the fallen leaves were thick and red and brown beneath him, the Prince tied the rein on his saddle, and with his left hand felt the soft hairy little pelt between Beauty’s legs, and leaned his face against her warm hip, kissing it gently.
After a while, he pulled her down into his lap, turning her as before so she rested against his left arm, and he kissed her red face and brushed the long golden strands of her hair away from it, and then he suckled her breasts almost idly as though taking little drinks from them.
“Put your head on my shoulder,” he said. And she inclined to him obediently at once.
But when he went to sling her over his shoulder again, she gave a little desperate whimper. He did not allow this to stop him. And having her firmly in place, her ankles clasped to his hip, he scolded her lovingly, and gave her several hard spanks with his left hand until he heard her crying.
“You must never protest,” he repeated. “Not with sound, not with gesture. Only your tears may show your Prince what you feel, and never think that he does not wish to know what you feel. Now, respectfully, answer me.”
“Yes, my Prince,” Beauty whimpered softly.
He thrilled at the sound of it.
When they came to the small town in the middle of the forest, there was great excitement, as everyone had already heard of the enchantment being broken.
And as the Prince rode into the crooked little street with its high half-timbered houses blocking out the sky, people ran to the narrow windows and doorways. They crowded into the cobblestone alleyways.
Behind him, the Prince could hear his men in hushed voices telling the townspeople who he was, that it was their Lord who had broken the enchantment. The girl he carried with him was the Sleeping Beauty.
Beauty was sobbing softly, her body struggling with these sobs, but the Prince held her firmly.
Finally with a great crowd following him, he arrived at the Inn, and his horse, with loud clops, entered the courtyard.
His page quickly helped him down.
“We’ll stop only for food and drink,” said the Prince. “We can go miles before sundown.”
He stood Beauty on her feet and watched with admiration as her hair fell down around her. And he turned her around twice, pleased to see she kept her hands clasped behind her neck and her eyes down as he looked at her.
He kissed her devotedly.
“Do you see how they all look at you?” he said. “Do you feel how they admire your beauty? They are adoring you,” he said. And opening her lips again, he sucked another kiss out of her, his hand squeezing her sore buttocks.
It seemed her lips clung to his as if she were afraid to let him go, and then he kissed her eyelids.
“Now everyone is going to want to have a look at Beauty,” the Prince said to the Captain of his Guard. “Bind her hands over her head by a rope from the sign over t
he Inn gate, and let the people have their fill of her. But no one is to touch her. They can look all they like, but you stand guard and see that no one touches her. I’ll have your food sent out to you.”
“Yes, my Lord,” said the Captain of the Guard.
But as the Prince gently gave Beauty over to him, she leaned forward, her lips out to the Prince, and he received her kiss gratefully. “You’re very sweet, my darling,” he said. “Now be modest and very very good. I should be very disappointed if all this adulation made my Beauty vain.” He kissed her again, and let the Captain have her.
Then going inside and ordering his meat and ale, the Prince watched through the diamond-paned windows.
The Captain of the Guard did not dare touch Beauty, except to put the rope about her wrists. He led her by this to the open gate of the courtyard, and throwing the rope up over the iron rod that held the sign of the Inn, he quickly secured her hands above her head, so that she was almost on tiptoe.
Then he motioned for the people to move back, and he stood against the wall with his arms folded as they pressed to look at her.
There were buxom women with stained aprons, and coarse men in breeches and heavy leather shoes, and the young well-to-do men of the town in their velvet cloaks with their hands on their hips as they eyed Beauty from a distance, unwilling to elbow in the crowd. And several young women, their elaborate white headdresses freshly done up, who had come out lifting their hems fastidiously as they looked at her.
At first everyone was whispering, but now people began to speak more freely.
Beauty had turned her face into her arm and let her hair shield her face, but then a soldier came out from the Prince and said:
“His Majesty said to turn her and lift her chin so they might have a better look at her.”
An approving murmur went up from the crowd. “Very very lovely,” said one of the young men.
“And this is what so many died for,” said an old Cobbler.
The Captain of the Guard lifted Beauty’s chin, and holding the rope above her, said gently:
