The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

by Ann Rice

  "Yes, my Prince," she cried, her lip trembling uncontrollably.

  "Then why are you crying so when you haven't even felt the paddle yet? And your buttocks are only a little sore. Why, the Innkeeper's daughter had little strength."

  She cried almost bitterly, as if to say in her soft wordless way that it was all true but it was so difficult.

  It was an explosion of stinging pain on the hot surface of her flesh, and the second spank came much more swiftly than she had thought possible and then there was the third and the fourth, and in spite of herself she was crying aloud.

  He stopped and gently kissed her all over her face. "Beauty, Beauty," he said. "Now, I give you permission to speak... tell what it is you would have me know..."

  "I want to please you, my Prince," she struggled, "but it hurts so, and I've tried so hard to please you."

  "But, my darling, you please me by bearing this pain. I explained to you earlier that punishment would not always be for a transgression. Sometimes it would be for my pleasure only."

  "Yes, my Prince," she cried.

  "I shall tell you a little secret about the pain. You are as a tight bowstring. And the pain loosens you, makes you soft as I want you to be. It is worth a thousand little orders and scoldings, and you must not think of resisting it. Do you know what I am saying? You must give yourself over to it. With each crack of the paddle you must think of the next and the next and that it is your Prince doing it to you, giving you this pain."

  "Yes, my Prince," she said softly.

  He lifted her chin again without further ado and spanked her hard again and again on the buttocks. She felt her buttocks growing hotter and hotter with pain, and the cracks of the paddle sounded loud and somehow shattering to her, as if the sound itself were as dreadful as the pain. She could not understand it.

  When he stopped again, she was breathless and almost frantic in her tears, as if the torrent of blows had so humiliated her it was far worse than even a greater pain would have been.

  But the Prince folded her in his arms. And feeling his rough clothing against her, and his hard naked chest, and the strength of his shoulders, she felt such a soothing pleasure that her sobs grew soft and open mouthed and languid against him.

  His rough breeches were against her sex, and she found herself pressing against him only to have him guide her gently back as if silently reproving her.

  "Kiss me," he said, and such a shock of pleasure went through her at the closing of his open mouth over hers that she was almost unable to stand, letting her weight fall against him.

  He turned her toward the bed.

  "That's enough for tonight," he said softly. "We have a hard journey tomorrow."

  And he told her to lie down.

  It occurred to her suddenly that he was not going to take her. She heard him moving to the door, and this pleasure between her legs became suddenly an agony. But all she could do was cry softly into the pillow. She tried to keep her sex from touching the sheets because she feared that if it did she could not resist some undulating movement. And she felt sure he was watching her. Of course he'd meant her to feel pleasure. But without his permission?

  She lay rigid, afraid, crying.

  A moment later she heard voices behind her.

  "Bathe her and put a soothing ointment on her buttocks," the Prince was saying, "and you may talk to the Princess if you like, and she to you. You are to treat her with the utmost respect," said the Prince and then she heard his steps dying away.

  She lay too afraid to look behind her. The door was closed again. She heard steps. She heard the cloth in the basin of water.

  "It's me, dearest Princess," said a woman's voice, and she realized it was a young woman, a woman her own age, and could only be the Innkeeper's daughter.

  She buried her face in the pillow. "This is unbearable," she thought, and suddenly with all her heart she hated the Prince, but she was far too humiliated to think of it. She felt the girl's weight on the bed beside her, and just the rough cloth of her apron brushing against Beauty's buttocks caused the sore and stinging flesh to ache more keenly.

  She felt as if her buttocks must be enormous, though she knew they were not, or giving off some terrible light with all their redness. The girl would feel their heat; this girl, of all girls, who had tried so hard to please the Prince by spanking her far harder than the Prince had realized.

  The wet cloth stroked her shoulders, her arms, her neck. It stroked her back and then her thighs and legs and feet, the girl carefully avoiding her sex and the soreness.

  But then after the girl had wrung out the cloth, she touched the buttocks lightly.

  "O, I know it hurts, dearest Princess," she confided. "I'm so sorry, but what could I do when the Prince commanded me?" The rag was rough on the soreness, and Beauty realized this time that the Prince had left her with a score of welts. She moaned, and though she loathed this girl with a violent feeling she'd never had for anyone else in her brief life, the cloth nevertheless felt good to her.

  The moist cloth was cooling her; it was like the gently massaging of an itch. And Beauty grew quiet as the girl continued to bathe her in a gently circular motion.

  "Dearest Princess," the girl said, "I know how you suffer but he is so very handsome, and he will have his way, there's nothing to be done about it. Please talk to me, please tell me that you don't despise me."

  "I don't despise you," Beauty said in a small spiritless voice. "How could I blame you or despise you?"

  "I had to do it. And what a spectacle it was. Princess, I must tell you something. You may be angry with me, but maybe it will be a consolation to you."

  Beauty closed her eyes and pressed her cheek into the pillow. She did not want to hear it. But she liked the girl's voice, its respect and gentleness. The girl did not mean to hurt her. She could feel that awe in the girl, that humility Beauty had known in all her servants all her life. It was no different, not even with this one who had held her over her knee in a tavern and spanked her in the presence of crude men and villagers. Beauty pictured her as she remembered her from the kitchen door: her dark curly hair in ringlets about her little round face, and those big eyes full of apprehension. How fierce the Prince must have seemed to her! Why she must have been terrified that at any moment, the Prince would order her stripped and humiliated! Beauty smiled to herself, thinking of it. She felt a tenderness for the girl, and for her gentle hands which were now bathing the hot, aching flesh so carefully.

  "All right," Beauty said, "what is it you want to tell me?"

  "Only that you were so lovely, dearest Princess, that you have such beauty. Even as you were there, why, how many who seem beautiful could have kept their beauty in such a trial, and you were so beautiful, Princess." Over and over she said this word, better words she did not know. "You were so... so graceful, Princess," she said. "You bore it so well, with such obedience to his Highness, the Prince."

  Beauty said nothing. She was thinking of it again, of how it must have seemed to the girl. But it gave Beauty such a frightful sense of herself that she stopped thinking of it. This girl had seen her so closely, had seen the redness of her flesh as it was punished, and had felt her writhing uncontrollably.

  Beauty would have cried again, but she didn't want to.

  For the first time, through a film of ointment, she felt the girl's naked fingers on her. They massaged the welts.

  "Ooooh!" the Princess gasped.

  "I'm sorry," said the girl. "I am trying so to be gentle."

  "No, you must go on. Rub it in well," sighed Beauty, "it feels good, actually. Maybe it's that moment when you take your fingers away." How try to explain it, her buttocks flooded with this pain, itching with it, the welts little hard pebblelike bits of pain, and those fingers pinching them and then releasing them.

  "Everyone adores you, Princess," the girl whispered. "Everyone has seen your beauty, and nothing to disguise it or hide your defects, and you have no defects. And they are swooning over you, Prince
ss."

  "Is that really so? Or do you say it to console me?" asked Beauty.

  "O, it is so," said the girl. "O, you should have heard the rich women out in the Inn yard tonight, all of them pretending they weren't envious, but all of them knew that stripped they couldn't hold a candle to you, Princess. And of course the Prince was so beautiful, so handsome and so..."

  "Ah, yes," sighed Beauty.

  The girl had coated the buttocks now and was putting even more ointment into the flesh. And she worked some of it into Beauty's thighs, her fingers stopping just before the hair between Beauty's legs, and again, with fierce annoyance and shame, Beauty felt that pleasure coming back. And with this girl!

  "O, if the Prince were to know it," she thought suddenly. She couldn't imagine him being pleased, and it suddenly occurred to her that he might punish her any time she felt this pleasure without his giving it to her. She tried to put it out of her mind. She wished she knew where he was now.

  "Tomorrow," the girl said, "when you go on to the Prince's castle, the road all along the way will be lined with those who want to see you. Word is spreading all through the Kingdom..."

  Beauty gave a little start at these words. "Are you sure of it?" she said fearfully. It was too much to think of suddenly. She remembered that peaceful moment in the afternoon forest. She had been alone ahead of the Prince and had some how managed to forget the soldiers following him. And suddenly to think of people all along the road waiting to see her! She remembered the crowded village streets, those inevitable moments when her naked thighs or breasts even had been brushed by an arm or the fabric of a skirt – she felt her breath halt.

  "But he wants this for me," she thought. "Not just that he see me but that all see me."

  "It gives the people such pleasure to see you," he had said tonight as they entered this little town. He had prodded her on up ahead of him, and she had been crying so fiercely as she saw all about her those shoes and boots from which she dared not look up.

  "But you are so lovely, Princess, and they will be telling their grandchildren about it," said the tavern girl. "They cannot wait to feast their eyes upon you, and you will not disappoint them, no matter what they have heard. Imagine that, never disappointing anyone..." The girl's voice trailed off as though she were in thought. "O, I wish I could follow you to see it."

  "But you don't understand," Beauty whispered, unable suddenly to contain herself. "You don't realize..."

  "Yes, I do," said the girl. "Of course I do... I've seen the Princesses when they come through in their magnificent gowns covered with jewels, and I know how it must feel to be opened to the world as if you were a flower, all of their eyes like fingers prying at you, but you are so... so splendid finally, Princess, and so rare. And you are his Princess, and he has claimed you and all know you are in his power and must do as he commands you. It is no shame to you, Princess. How could it be, with so great a Prince to command you? O, do you think that there aren't women who would give up everything to take your place, if only they had your beauty?"

  Beauty was startled by this. She thought about it. Women giving up everything, taking her place. It had not occurred to her. She remembered that moment in the forest.

  But then she remembered being spanked in the Inn, and all of those others watching. She remembered sobbing helplessly, and hating her buttocks propped up in the air, and her legs open, and that paddle coming down again and again. Finally the pain was the least of it.

  She thought of the crowds on the road. She tried to picture it. It would happen to her tomorrow.

  She would feel this drenching humiliation, this pain, but all those people would be there to witness her humiliation, to amplify it.

  The door had opened.

  The Prince had come into the room. And the little tavern girl jumped up and was bowing to him.

  "Your Highness," the girl said breathlessly.

  "You've done your work very well," said the Prince.

  "It was a great honor, your Highness," said the girl.

  The Prince came to the bed, and clasping Beauty's right wrist, he drew her up out of the bed and stood her beside it. Obediently, Beauty looked down, and not knowing what to do with her hands, quickly brought them to the back of the neck.

  She could almost feel the Prince's satisfaction.

  "Excellent, my darling," he said. "Isn't she lovely, your Princess?" he said to the tavern girl.

  "O, yes, your Highness."

  "Did you talk to her and console her as you were bathing her?"

  "O, yes, your Highness, I told her how much everyone admired her and how much they wanted to..."

  "Yes, to see her," the Prince said.

  There was a pause. Beauty wondered if they were both looking at her, and suddenly she felt herself naked in the sight of both of them. It seemed one or the other she could bear, but both of them staring at her breasts and sex was too much for her.

  But the Prince embraced her as if seeing that she needed embracing, and gently squeezing her sore flesh, sent another soft shock of shameful pleasure through her. She knew her face was red again. She had always blushed so easily. And were there other ways in which he could tell what his hands did to her? She would cry again if she could not conceal this mounting pleasure.

  "Down on your knees, my darling," said the Prince with a little snap of his fingers.

  In a shock Beauty obeyed, seeing the rough floorboards before her. She could see the Prince's black boots, and then the crude leather shoes of the serving girl.

  "Now, approach your servant and kiss her shoes. Show her how grateful you are for her devotion to you."

  Beauty didn't stop to think of it. But she felt her tears come again as she obeyed, depositing each kiss on the worn leather of the girl's shoes as gracefully as she could. Above she heard the girl's murmured thanks to the Prince.

  "Your Highness," the girl said, "it is I who want to kiss my Princess, I beg you."

  The Prince must have nodded, because the girl fell to her knees, and, stroking Beauty's hair, kissed her upturned face with great reverence.

  "Now, you see there the posts of the foot of the bed," the Prince said to the girl. Beauty of course knew that the bed had high posts which held a coffered ceiling over it.

  "Tie your mistress to those posts with her hands and legs quite wide apart so that as I lie down I can look up at her," said the Prince. "Tie her with these satin bands so her skin won't be injured, but tie her very firmly for she must sleep in this position and her weight must not pull her loose."

  Beauty was stunned.

  She was in a delirium as she was lifted to stand at the foot of the bed. She obeyed pliantly as the girl told her to spread her legs. She felt the satin go tight around her right ankle and then it firmly bound her left ankle, and then the girl, standing before her on the bed, bound the Princess's hands high on either side of her.

  She was spread-eagled, looking down at the bed, and with terror, she realized that the Prince must see how she suffered; he must see the shame of the dampness between her legs, those fluids she could neither check or conceal, and, turning her face into her arm, she whimpered softly.

  But the worst of it was that he did not mean to take her. He had tied her here out of reach of himself so that as he slept she must look down on him.

  Now the girl was dismissed, secretly depositing a little kiss on Beauty's thigh before she left. And Beauty, crying softly, realized she was alone with the Prince. She did not dare to look at him.

  "My beautiful obedient one," he sighed.

  And to her horror she felt, as he drew near, the hard handle of that dreadful wooden paddle nudging her moist and secret place, so cruelly exposed by her open legs.

  She struggled to pretend this was not happening. But she could feel that revealing fluid, and she knew the Prince knew of her tormenting pleasure.

  "I have taught you much, and I am so very pleased with you," he said, "and so now you know a new suffering, a new sacrifice for you Lord
and master. I could soothe the burning craving between your legs but I shall let you suffer it and know the meaning of it, and that only your Prince can give you that relief that you long for."

  She couldn't control her moan, even though she muffled it against her arm. She feared that any moment she might move her hips in helpless, humiliating entreaty.

  He had snuffed the candles.

  The room was dark.

  Beneath her feet she felt the mattress give with his weight.

  She leaned her head against her arm and felt secure in the satin bonds as she let herself hang there. But this torment, this torment... and there was nothing she could do to alleviate it.

  She prayed the swelling between her legs would die away, as the throbbing in her buttocks was cooling and dying away. And then falling to sleep, she thought calmly, dreamily almost, of the crowds awaiting her on the roads to the Prince's castle.

  THE CASTLE AND THE GREAT HALL

  BEAUTY WAS breathless and flushed as they left the Inn; but it was not so much on account of the crowds that lined the village streets, nor those she would see ahead following the ribbon of road as it ran through the wheat fields.

  The Prince had sent couriers ahead, and as Beauty's hair was dressed with white flowers, he told her they would reach his castle by afternoon if they were to hurry.

  "We shall be in my Kingdom," he announced proudly, "as soon as we are on the other side of the mountains."

  Beauty could not quite anatomize the feeling this aroused in her.

  But the Prince, as if sensing her strange confusion, kissed her full on the mouth before mounting his horse, and said in a soft voice so that only those around them could hear:

  "When you enter my Kingdom, you shall be mine more completely than ever. You will be mine beyond reprieve, and it will be easier for you to forget all that went before that time, and devote your life to me only."

  And now they left the village, the Prince walking his magnificent horse just behind Beauty as she made her way quickly over the warm cobblestones.

  The sun was hotter than before, and the crowds were very great, the farmers having all come to the road, and people were pointing and staring, and standing on tiptoe all the better to see, as Beauty felt the soft gravel under her feet and now and then tufts of silken grass or wildflower.