The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

by Ann Rice

  "Yes, my Prince," she sighed. But she was crying again.

  "I will treasure you all the more for it. The girl I found in the castle room was nothing to me such as you are now, my devoted Princess."

  But the Prince was not entirely satisfied with the way in which he was instructing Beauty. He told her when they reached another town at nightfall that he was going to strip a little more dignity away from her to make it easier for her.

  And while the townspeople pressed their faces to the leaded glass windows of the Inn, the Prince had Beauty wait on his table.

  On her hands and knees she hurried across the rough boards of the Inn floor to fetch his plate from the kitchen. And though she was allowed to walk back with it, she was again on all fours to fetch his flagon. The soldiers devoured their supper, throwing silent glances at her by the light of the fire.

  She wiped the table for the Prince and when a morsel of food spilled from his plate to the floor, he commanded Beauty to eat it. With tears spilling from her eyes, Beauty obeyed, and then he gathered her, still on her knees, into his arms and rewarded her with dozens of wet and loving kisses. Obediently she put her arms around his neck.

  But this little morsel spilling had given him an idea. He ordered her to quickly fetch a plate from the kitchen again, and then told her to lay it on the floor at his feet.

  He put food for her there from his plate, and told her to lift her heavy hair behind her shoulders and eat it only with her mouth.

  "You are my kitten," he laughed gaily. "And I would forbid you all those tears if they weren't so beautiful. Do you want to please me?"

  "Yes, my Prince," she said.

  With his foot he pushed her plate several paces away and told her to turn her buttocks to him as she continued her meal. He admired it, realizing the red marks from her spanking had almost healed. With the toe of his leather boot, he nudged at the silken hair he could see between her legs, felt the moist plump lips beneath the hair, and sighed, thinking her so very beautiful.

  When she had finished her meal, with her lips she pushed the plate back to his chair as he ordered her to do it, and then he wiped her lips himself and fed her some wine from his cup.

  He watched her long beautiful throat as she swallowed, and kissed her eyelids.

  "Now listen to me, I want you to learn from this," he said. "Everyone here can see you, all your charms, you're aware of it. But I want you to be very aware of it. Behind you, the townspeople at the windows are admiring you as they did when I brought you through the town. This should make you proud of yourself, not vain, but proud, proud that you have pleased me, and caught their admiration."

  "Yes, my Prince," she said when he paused.

  "Now think, you are very naked and very helpless, and you are mine completely."

  "Yes, my Prince," she cried softly.

  "That is your life now, and you are to think of nothing else, and regret nothing else. I want that dignity peeled away from you as if it were so many skins of the onion. I don't mean that you should ever be graceless. I mean that you should surrender to me."

  "Yes, my Prince," she said.

  The Prince looked up at the Innkeeper who stood at the kitchen door with his wife and his daughter. They came to attention at once. But the Prince looked only at the daughter. She was a young woman, very pretty in her own way, though nothing compared to Beauty. She had black hair and round cheeks, and a very tiny waist, and she dressed as many peasant women did, in a low-cut ruffled shirtwaist, and a short broad skirt that revealed her smart little ankles. She had an innocent face. She was watching Beauty in wonder, her big brown eyes moving anxiously to the Prince and then shyly back to Beauty who knelt at the Prince's feet in the firelight.

  "Now, as I told you," the Prince said softly to Beauty, "all here admire you, and they enjoy you, the sight of you, your plump little rear, your lovely legs, those breasts which I cannot stop myself from kissing. But there is no one here, not the lowliest, who is not better than you, my Princess, if I command you to serve him."

  Beauty was frightened. She nodded quickly as she answered "Yes, my Prince," and then very impulsively she bent and kissed the Prince's boot, but then she appeared terrified.

  "Now, that is very good, my darling," the Prince stroking her neck, reassured her. "That is very good. If I allow you one gesture to speak your heart unbidden it is that one. You may always show me respect of your own accord in that manner."

  Again Beauty pressed her lips to the leather. But she was trembling.

  "These townspeople hunger for you, hunger for more of your loveliness," the Prince continued. "And I think they deserve a little taste of it that will delight them."

  Beauty kissed the Prince's boot again, and let her lips rest there.

  "O, don't think I should really let them have their fill of your charms. O, no," the Prince said thoughtfully.

  "But I showed you this opportunity, both to reward their devoted attention and teach you that punishment will come whenever I desire to give it. You need not be disobedient to merit it. I will punish when it pleases me. Sometimes that will be the only reason for it."

  Beauty couldn't keep herself from whimpering.

  The Prince smiled and beckoned to the Innkeeper's daughter. But she was so frightened of him that she didn't come forward until her father pushed her.

  "My dear," said the Prince gently. "In the kitchen, have you a flat wooden instrument, for shoveling the hot pans into the oven?"

  There was a faint movement throughout the room as the soldiers glanced at one another. The people outside were pressing closer to the windows. The young girl nodded and quickly returned with a wooden paddle, very flat and smooth from years of use, with a good handle.

  "Excellent," said the Prince.

  But Beauty was crying helplessly.

  The Prince quickly ordered the Innkeeper's daughter to seat herself on the edge of the high hearth which was the height of a chair, and told Beauty, on her hands and knees, to go to her.

  "My dear," he said to the Innkeeper's daughter, "these good people deserve a little spectacle. They'r life is hard and barren. My men deserve it as well. And my Princess can well use the chastisement."

  Beauty knelt crying before the girl who, seeing what she was to do, was fascinated.

  "Up over her lap, Beauty," said the Prince, "hands behind your neck, and lift your lovely hair our of the way. At once!" he said, almost sharply.

  Pricked by his voice, Beauty almost scurried to obey, and all those around her saw her tear-stained face.

  "Keep your chin up like that, yes, lovely. Now, my dear," said the Prince looking at the girl who held Beauty over her lap and the wooden paddle in her other hand. "I want to see if you can wield that as hard as a man might wield it. Do you think you can do that?"

  He could not keep from smiling at the girl's delight and desire to please. She nodded murmuring a respectful reply, and when he gave her the command, she brought the paddle down hard on Beauty's naked buttocks. Beauty couldn't keep still. She struggled to keep quiet, but she couldn't keep still, and finally even the whimpers and moans escaped her.

  The tavern girl spanked her harder and harder, and the Prince enjoyed this, savoring it far more than the spanking he had given Beauty himself.

  It was because he could see it much better, see Beauty's breasts heaving, and the tears spilling down her face, and her little buttocks straining, as if, without moving, Beauty might somehow escape or deflect the girl's hard blows.

  Finally, when the buttocks were very red but not welted, he told the girl to stop.

  He could see his soldiers enthralled and all the townspeople as well, and then he snapped his fingers and told Beauty to come to him.

  "Now eat your suppers, all of you, talk amongst yourselves, do as you like," he said quickly.

  For a moment no one obeyed him. Then the soldiers turned to one another, and those outside, seeing that Beauty was retired down to kneeling at the Prince's feet, her hair veiling her red f
ace, her raw and stinging buttocks pressed to her ankles, were murmuring and talking at the windows.

  The Prince gave Beauty another drink of wine. He was not sure he was entirely satisfied with her. He was thinking of many things.

  He called the Innkeeper's daughter to him and told her she had been very good, gave her a gold coin, and took the paddle from her.

  Finally it was time to go up. And driving Beauty before him, he gave her a few gentle but brisk spanks to hurry her up the stairs to the bedchamber.

  BEAUTY

  BEAUTY STOOD at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped to her neck, her buttocks throbbing with a warm pain that felt so much better now than the spanking she had lately received that it was almost pleasure.

  She had for the moment stopped crying. She had only just pulled down the covers for the Prince, with her teeth, her hands clasped behind her back, and then with her teeth had taken his boots to the edge of the room.

  And now she waited for further commands, trying to watch him, though her eyes were cast down, without his realizing it.

  He had bolted the door, and he was sitting on the side of the bed.

  And his black hair, loose and curling at his shoulders gleamed in the light of the tallow candle. His face was very beautiful to her, perhaps because in spite of the size of the features, they were all rather delicately molded. She did not know for certain.

  Even his hands enthralled her. The fingers were so long, so white, so delicate.

  She was terribly relieved to be alone with him. The moments below in the Inn had been such an agony to her, and even though he had brought the wooden paddle with him and might spank her much harder with it than that dreadful girl, she was so glad to be alone with him that she could not be afraid of it. She was afraid, however, that she hadn't pleased him.

  She searched her mind for faults. She had obeyed all his commands, and he understood how difficult it was for her. He knew completely what it meant for her to be stripped naked and revealed to everyone, to be helpless and made public and that this surrender of which he spoke could come in acts and gestures long before it could come from her mind. But no matter how hard she tried to excuse herself, she could not help but wondering if she could have tried harder.

  Did he want her to cry out more when she was spanked? She was uncertain. Just thinking of that girl spanking her in front of everyone made her cry again, and she knew that the Prince would see her tears, and he might wonder why now, when she'd been told to stand still at the foot of the bed, she was crying.

  This is my life, she told herself, trying to calm herself. He has awakened me and claimed me. My parents are restored, their Kingdom is theirs again, and more significantly, life is theirs again, and I belong to him. She felt a great relaxation when she thought these things and a stirring in herself that seemed to make her sore and throbbing buttocks feel suddenly warmer. The pain made her so shamefully aware of that part of her body! But then as she squeezed her eyes against these soft and slow tears, she looked down at her swelling breasts and the tiny hard nipples and felt that same awareness of herself there too, just as if he'd slapped her breasts which he hadn't done in a great while, and she felt softly bewildered.

  My life, she struggled to understand. And she remembered that in the afternoon in the warm forest when she had been walking before his horse, she had felt her own long hair on her buttocks, brushing them as she walked ahead of him, and she had wondered if she looked beautiful to him, and she had wished that he would pick her up then, and kiss her and caress her. Of course she had not dared to look back. She couldn't imagine what he would have done had she been so foolish as to do that, but the sun had thrown their shadows ahead of them and she had seen the shadow of his profile, and felt such a pleasure that she was ashamed of it, and her legs had felt weak and there had been the oddest feeling in her, something she had never known in her earlier life, though perhaps in her dreams.

  She was awakened now, at the foot of his bed, by his low but firm command.

  "Come here, my darling." He motioned for her to kneel before him.

  "This shirt is to be opened down the front, and you will learn to do so with your lips and teeth, and I will be patient with you," he said.

  She had thought it would be the paddle. And, very relieved, she went almost too quickly to obey, pulling the thick tie that closed the shirt at his throat. His flesh felt warm and smooth to her. Men's flesh. So different, she thought. And she quickly pulled loose the second tie and the tired. She had a struggle with the fourth which was at his waist, but he didn't move, and then when she was finished, she bowed her head, her hands as before on the back of her neck and waited.

  "Open my breeches," he said to her.

  Her cheeks flamed; she could feel it. But again she didn't hesitate. She pulled the fabric forward over the hook until the hook slipped out and let it go. And now she could see his sex, bulging there, painfully twisted. She wanted suddenly to kiss it, but she didn't dare and was shocked at her impulse.

  He had lifted it free. It was hard. She thought of it between her legs, filling her, rough and too big for her virginal opening, and of that terrible pleasure which had suffused her and wasted her the night before, and she knew she was blushing furiously.

  "Now go to the stand in the corner," he said, "and bring back the basin with water in it."

  She almost scurried across the floor. Several times in the Inn he had told her to move fast, and though she had hated it at first, she now did it instinctively. She brought the basin in both hands and set it down. There was a cloth in the water.

  "Wring out the cloth tightly," he said, "and bathe me quickly."

  She did as she was told at once, staring in amazement at his sex, its length, its hardness, and the tip of it with its tiny opening. She had been so sore from it yesterday, yet that pleasure had paralyzed her. Never had she guessed at such a secret.

  "Now, do you know what I want of you?" the Prince said gently. His had lovingly stroked her cheek, lifting her hair back. She ached to look at him. She wished so much he would command her to look into his eyes. It terrified her, but after the first instant it was so wondrous to her, his expression, that handsome and almost delicate face, and those black eyes that seemed to accept no compromise.

  "No, my Prince, but whatever it is..." she started.

  "Yes, darling... you are being very good. I want you to take it in your mouth, stroke it with your tongue and your lips."

  She was shocked. She had never thought of this. She thought suddenly, cruelly of who she had been, a Princess, and she thought of all her young life before she had fallen asleep, and she almost gave a little whimper. But this was her Prince who was commanding her, not some dreadful person she was being given to as a wife who might have demanded this of her. She closed her eyes and took it into her mouth, feeling its huge size, its hardness.

  It nudged at the back of her throat, and she pushed up and down on it as the Prince guided her.

  The taste of it was almost delicious; and it seemed a salty liquid in tiny droplets came out into her mouth, and then she stopped because he had said it was enough.

  She opened her eyes.

  "Very good, Beauty, very good," said the Prince.

  And she could tell he was in pain with his need suddenly. It made her fell proud, and there was in her, even in her helplessness, a sense of power.

  But he had risen and was guiding her to her feet. And she realized as she straightened her legs that that debilitating pleasure had caught hold of her. She felt for a moment that she couldn't stand, but to disobey him was unthinkable. Quickly she stood straight, hands behind her neck, and she struggled to keep her hips from going into some slight humiliating movement. Could he see it? She bit her lip again and felt its soreness.

  "You've done marvelously well today, you've learned so very much," he said tenderly. His voice could be so soft and yet so firm at the same time. It made her feel almost drowsy; that pleasure was melting inside of her.

&nb
sp; But then she saw that he was reaching for the paddle behind him. She let out a little gasp before she could stop herself, and she felt his hand on her arm, taking her hands away from the back of her neck, and turning her around. She wanted to cry out, "What have I done?"

  But his voice came low, crooning in her ear.

  "And I've learned a very important lesson myself, that pain softens you, makes it easier for you. You are infinitely more malleable from the spanking given you in the Inn than you were before it."

  She wanted to shake her head, but she didn't dare. The thought of all those who had seen her spanked tormented her. She had been turned so those at the windows could see her buttocks and between her legs, and the soldiers could see her face, and it had been excruciating. Well, it would only be her Prince now. If only she could tell him, for him anything, but those others were such punishment...

  She knew this was wrong. It was not what he wanted her to think, what he was trying to teach her. But now she couldn't think.

  He was at her side. He held her chin in his left hand, and he had told her to fold her arms behind her back which was difficult for her. It was worse than clasping her hands behind her neck. This position arched her body, forced her breasts out, and made her breasts and face feel painfully naked. She moaned slightly as he lifted her hair and folded the great mane of it over her right shoulder, away from him.

  It covered her arm, but he pushed it away from her nipples and pinched both of them hard between his finger and thumb, lifting her breasts and letting them fall naturally as he did so.

  Her face was positively smarting. But she knew what was to come would be worse.

  "Spread your legs ever so slightly. You must be firmly planted on the ground," he said, "so that you can withstand the blows of the paddle."

  She wanted to cry out, and through her tightly pressed lips her sobs sounded very loud to her.

  "Beauty, Beauty," he crooned. "Do you want to please me?"