by Anne Rice
It had been as delicious as it was extreme, the greatest of all degradations. I had felt myself luxuriating in it even as the Captain of the Guard whipped my bare chest, my open legs, my naked belly. And how divinely easy it had been to plead through uncontrollable groans and undulations, knowing full well that I would never be heeded. How it had titillated my soul to know there was not the slightest hope of mercy for me.
Yes, in those moments, I had known the full power of my captors, but I had also known my own power—that we who are bereft of all privileges may yet goad and guide our punishers into new realms of heat and loving attentiveness.
There was no desire to please now, no passion to accomplish. Only divine and anguished abandon. I had rocked my buttocks shamelessly on the phallus that jutted into me from the cross, receiving the quick blows of the Captain’s leather strap like kisses. I had struggled and wept to my heart’s content without a particle of dignity.
The only flaw in the magnificent scheme, I suppose, was that I could not see my tormentors unless they stood directly above me, which only happened rarely.
And at night, when I was mounted high in the village square, and I could hear them gathered on the platform below me—feel them pinching my sore backside, spanking my cock—I wished I could see the contempt and humor on their faces, their utter superiority to the lowest of the low which I had become.
I liked being condemned. I liked being this grim and frightening exhibit of folly and suffering, even as I quaked at the sounds that signaled a fresh whipping, as the tears spilled uncontrollably down my face.
It was infinitely richer than being the scarlet-faced and trembling plaything of Lady Elvera. Finer even than the sweet sport of mounting Princesses in the garden.
And finally, there were special rewards for the painful angle of my vision as well. The young soldier, after whipping me at the stroke of nine o’clock, had mounted the ladder beside me, and looked down into my eyes, and kissed my gagged mouth.
I had been unable to show how much I adored him, unable even to close my lips around the thick band of leather that gagged me and held my head in place. But he had clasped my chin and sucked on my upper lip, then my lower lip, running his tongue into my mouth under the leather, and then he promised me in a whisper that I should be whipped again very well at midnight; he would see to it himself. He liked the task of whipping bad slaves.
“You’ve a good tapestry of pink stripes on your chest and belly,” he said. “But you’re going to be even prettier. And then there is the Public Turntable for you at sunup, when you’ll be unbound and made to kneel over, and the village Whipping Master will do his work on you for the morning crowd. How they will love it, a big strong Prince such as you.”
Again he kissed me, sucking on my lower lip, running his tongue along my teeth. I had heaved against the wood, against my bonds, my cock a shaft of exquisite hunger.
I had tried in every unspoken way known to me to show my love for him, his words, his affection.
How strange it all was, that he might not understand it. But it didn’t matter. It didn’t matter if I was gagged forever, and could never tell anyone. What mattered was that I had found my perfect place and must never rise above it. I must be the emblem of the worst punishment. If only my sore cock, my swollen cock, could know a moment’s respite, just a moment’s....
And, as if reading my thoughts, he had said:
“Now I have a little gift for you. We want to keep that handsome organ in good form after all, and that is not done through laziness.” And I heard near him a woman’s laughter. “She’s one of the lovelier village girls,” he said, brushing my hair out of my eyes. “Would you like to have a good look at her first?”
Oooh, yes, I tried to answer. And I saw her face above me—bouncing red curls, sweet blue eyes, blushing cheeks, and lips that came down to kiss me.
“See how pretty she is?” he asked in my ear. And to her he said: “You may go ahead, dearest.”
I felt her legs hooked over mine, her starched petticoats tickling my flesh, her wet little crotch rubbed against my cock, and then the hairy little sheath opening as she came down on me very tight. I was moaning louder than it seemed possible to moan. And the young soldier smiled above me and lowered his head again to bestow his wet, sucking kisses.
0, lovely hot little pair. I thrashed uselessly under my leather bonds. But she made the rhythm for both of us, riding me up and down, the heavy cross shaking, my cock erupting into her.
I hadn’t seen anything after that, not even the sky.
I vaguely remembered the young soldier coming and saying it was midnight and time for my next good whipping. And, if I was a very good boy from now on, and my cock stood well to attention for every whipping, he might have another village girl for me the next night. It was his opinion a punished runaway ought to have a girl often. It only made his suffering worse.
I had smiled gratefully under the gag of black leather. Yes, anything to make the suffering worse. And how was I to be a good boy, by twitching and struggling and making noises to show my suffering, by thrusting my hungry cock into the empty air? I was more than willing to do it. I wished I knew how long I would be on exhibit. I wished I could remain so forever, a permanent symbol of baseness, worthy only of scorn.
Now and then I had thought, as the strap licked at my nipples and my belly, of how Lady Elvera had looked when they had brought me to the castle gates on the cross.
Looking up, I had seen her with the Queen in the open window. And I had wept desperately, my tears overflowing. She was so very pretty! And that she would give me the worst now was why I worshiped her.
“Take him away,” My Lady had said with an almost bored air, her voice carrying over the empty courtyard. “And see that he is well whipped and sold to a good, cruel Master or Mistress.”
Yes, it was a new game of necessary discipline with new rules in which I discovered a depth of submission undreamed of.
“Laurent, I shall come down myself to see you sold,” she had said as I was being taken away. “I shall make certain you are given absolute drudgery.”
Love, real love for Lady Elvera, had underscored all of it. But Beauty’s later ruminations in the hold of the ship confused me.
Had the passion for Lady Elvera been all that love could be? Or was it merely the love one can have for any accomplished Mistress? Was there more to be learned in the crucible of heat and sublime pain? Maybe Beauty was more discriminating, more honest... more demanding.
Even with Tristan, one had the feeling that the love of his Master had been given too quickly, too freely. Had Nicolas, the Queen’s Chronicler, really been worthy of it? When Tristan spoke of this man, did he illuminate any particular? What came through Tristan’s laments was the fact that the man had invited the love with moments of remarkable intimacy. I wondered if, for Beauty, such an invitation would in itself have been sufficient.
Yet in the village it had been bittersweet to think of my lost Lady Elvera as I stretched and twisted on the Punishment Cross, the strap doing its work. But it was also bittersweet to think of pert little Princess Beauty back in the soldiers’ camp, who had stared at me in frank amazement. Was she on to the secret? That I had willed it? Would she herself dare such things? They had said at the castle that she had brought the village punishment upon herself. Yes, I liked her very much even then, bold and tender little darling.
But my life as punished runaway had ended before it began. I had never seen the auction block.
Within moments of that last midnight whipping the raid on the village had commenced. The Sultan’s soldiers thundered through the little cobblestone streets.
My leather gag and bonds were cut, and my aching body thrown over a speeding horse before I could even glimpse my captor.
Then the hold of the ship, this little cabin hung with jeweled tentwork and brass lanterns.
And the gold oil had been rubbed in my abraded skin, the perfume combed through my hair, and the stiff mesh co
vering had been chained over my cock and balls so that I could not touch them. And the confines of the cage. And the timid and respectful questions of the other captive slaves: Why had I run away and how had I endured the Punishment Cross?
And the echo of the warning of the Queen’s emissary before we left her Kingdom:
“In the Sultan’s palace ... you will no longer be treated as beings with high reason.... You will be trained as valuable animals are trained, and you must never, heaven help you, try to speak or to evince anything more than the simplest understanding.”
And I wondered now, as we drifted offshore, if in this strange land the diverse torments of the castle and the village might somehow be reconciled.
We had been abject by royal command, then abject by royal condemnation. Now in an alien world, far from those who knew our history or our stations, we would be abject by our very nature.
I opened my eyes, seeing again the one small night lantern hanging from its brass hook amid the tentwork drapery of the ceiling. Something was changed. We had dropped anchor.
And there was much movement above. All the crew it seemed had been roused. And steps were approaching....
BEAUTY: THROUGH THE CITY AND INTO THE PALACE
BEAUTY OPENED her eyes. She had not been sleeping, and she knew without having to see through a window that it was morning. The air in the cabin was unusually warm.
An hour ago she had heard Tristan and Laurent whispering in the dark, and she had known the ship was at anchor. And she had been only slightly afraid.
After that, she had slipped in and out of thin erotic dreams, her body wakening all over like a landscape under the rising sun. She was impatient to be ashore, impatient to know the full extent of what was to happen to her, to be threatened in ways that she could understand.
Now, when she saw the lean, comely little attendants flooding into the room, she knew for certain that they had come to the Sultanate. All would be realized soon enough.
The precious little boys—they could be no more than fourteen or fifteen, despite their height—had always been richly dressed, but this morning they wore embroidered silk robes, and their tight waist sashes were made of rich striped cloth, and their black hair gleamed with oil, and their innocent faces were dark with an unusual air of anxiety.
At once, the other royal captives were roused, and each slave was taken from the cage and led to the proper grooming table.
Beauty stretched herself out on the silk, enjoying her sudden freedom from confinement, the muscles in her legs tingling. She glanced at Tristan and then at Laurent. Tristan was suffering too much still. Laurent, as always, looked faintly amused. But there was not even time now to say farewell. She prayed they would not be separated, that whatever happened they would come to know it together, and that somehow their new captivity would yield moments when they might be able to talk.
At once the attendants rubbed the gold pigmented oil into Beauty’s skin, strong fingers working it well into her thighs and buttocks. Her long hair was lifted and brushed with gold dust, and then she was turned on her back gently.
Skilled fingers opened her mouth. Her teeth were polished with a soft cloth. Waxen gold was applied to her lips. And then gold paint was brushed onto her eyelashes and eyebrows.
Not since the first day of the journey had she or any of the slaves been so thoroughly decorated. And her body steamed with familiar sensations.
She thought hazily of her divinely crude Captain of the Guard, of the elegant but distantly remembered tormentors of the Queen’s Court, and she felt desperate to belong to someone again, to be punished for someone, to be possessed as well as chastised.
It was worth any humiliation, that, to be possessed by another. In retrospect, it seemed she had only been a flower in full bloom when she was thoroughly violated by the will of another, that in suffering for the will of another she had discovered her true self.
But she had a new and slowly deepening dream, one that had begun to flame in her mind during the time at sea, and that she had confided only to Laurent: the dream that she might somehow find in this strange land what she had not found before; someone whom she might truly love.
In the village, she had told Tristan that she did not want this, that it was harshness and severity alone she craved. But the truth was that Tristan’s love for his Master had deeply affected her. His words had swayed her, even as she had spoken her contradictions.
And then had come these lonely nights at sea of unfulfilled yearning, of pondering too much all the twists of fate and fortune. And she had felt strangely fragile thinking of love, of giving her secret soul to a Master or Mistress, more than ever off balance.
The groom combed gold paint into her pubic hair, tugging each curl to make it spring. Beauty could hardly keep her hips still. Then she saw a handful of fine pearls held out for her inspection. And into her pubic hair these went, to be affixed to the skin with powerful adhesive. Such lovely decorations. She smiled.
She closed her eyes for a second, her sex aching in its emptiness. Then she glanced at Laurent to see that his face had taken on an Oriental cast with the gold paint, his nipples beautifully erect like his thick cock. And his body was being ornamented, as befitted its size and power, with rather large emeralds instead of pearls.
Laurent was smiling at the little boy who did the work, as if in his mind he was peeling away the boy’s fancy clothes. But then he turned to Beauty, and, lifting his hand languidly to his lips, he blew her a little kiss, unnoticed by the others.
He winked and Beauty felt the desire in her burning hotter. He was so beautiful, Laurent.
“0, please don’t let us be separated,” she prayed. Not because she ever thought she would possess Laurent—that would be too interesting—but because she would be lost without the others, lost....
And then it hit her with full force: She had no idea what would happen to her in the Sultanate, and absolutely no control over it. Going into the village, she had known. She had been told. Even coming into the castle, she had known. The Crown Prince had prepared her. But this was beyond her imagining, this place. And beneath her concealing gold paint she grew pale.
The grooms were gesturing for their charges to rise. There were the usual exaggerated and urgent signs for them to be silent, still, obedient, as they stood in a circle facing each other.
And Beauty felt her hands lifted and clasped behind her back as if she were a senseless little being who could not even do that much herself. Her groom touched the back of her neck and then kissed her cheek softly as she compliantly bowed her head.
Still, she could see the others clearly. Tristan’s genitals had also been decorated with pearls, and he gleamed from head to toe, his blond locks even more golden than his burnished skin.
And, glancing at Dmitri and Rosalynd, she saw that they had both been decorated with red rubies. Their black hair was in magnificent contrast to their polished skin. Rosalynd’s enormous blue eyes looked drowsy under their fringe of painted lashes. Dmitri’s broad chest was tightened like that of a statue, though his strongly muscled thighs quivered uncontrollably.
Beauty suddenly winced as her groom added a bit more gold paint to each of her nipples. She couldn’t take her eyes off his small brown fingers, enthralled by the care with which he worked, and the way that her nipples hardened unbearably. She could feel each of the pearls clinging to her skin. Every hour of starvation at sea sharpened her silent craving.
But the captives had another little treat in store for them. She watched furtively, her head still bowed, as the grooms drew out of their deep, hidden pockets new and frightening little toys—pairs of gold clamps with long chains of delicate but sturdy links attached to them.
The clamps Beauty knew and dreaded, of course. But the chains—they really agitated her. They were like leashes and they had small leather handles.
Her groom touched her lips for quiet and then quickly stroked her right nipple, gathering a nice pinch of breast into the small gold
scallop-shell clamp before he snapped it shut. The clamp was lined with a bit of white fur, yet the pressure was firm. And all of Beauty’s skin seemed to feel the sudden nagging torment. When the other clamp was just as tightly in place, the groom gathered the handles of the long chains in his hands and gave them a tug. This was what Beauty had feared most. She was brought forward sharply, gasping.
At once the groom scowled, quite displeased with the openmouthed sound, and spanked her lips with his fingers firmly. She bowed my head lower, marveling at these two flimsy little chains, at their hold upon these unaccountably tender parts of her. They seemed to control her utterly.
She watched with her heart contracting, as the groom’s hand tightened again and the chains were jerked, and she was pulled forward once more by her nipples. She moaned this time but she did not dare to open her lips, and for this she received his approving kiss, the desire surging painfully inside her.
“0, but we cannot be led ashore like this,” she thought. She could see Laurent, opposite, clamped the same as she was, and blushing furiously as his groom tugged the hated little chains and made him step forward. Laurent looked more helpless than he had in the village on the Punishment Cross.
For a moment, all the delightful crudity of village punishments came back to her. And she felt more keenly this delicate restraint, the new quality of servitude.
She saw Laurent’s little groom kiss his cheek approvingly. Laurent had not gasped or cried out. But Laurent’s cock was bobbing uncontrollably. Tristan was in the same transparently miserable state, yet he looked, as ever, quietly majestic.
Beauty’s nipples throbbed as if they were being whipped. The desire cascaded through her limbs, made her dance just a little without moving her feet, her head suddenly light with dreams of new and particular love again.
But the business of the grooms distracted her. They were taking down from the walls their long, stiff leather thongs; and these, like all other objects in this realm, were heavily studded with jewels, which made them heavy instruments of punishment, though, like strips of sapling wood, they were quite flexible.
