The Sleeping Beauty Trilogy

by Anne Rice

  All this was done perfunctorily and with efficient, hard little pulls by the grooms, who then patted my buttocks and made me turn around for a quick inspection. I found it infinitely worse than the easy passivity of the cross. And their eyes moving over me, impersonally yet not indifferently, further intensified the feeling of apprehension.

  I was patted again on the buttocks, the mere touch bringing the tears to my eyes, though it felt oddly good. And the groom gave me a little comforting smile and patted the tip of my cock quickly also. The phallus seemed to rock inside me with every breath I took. In fact, every breath moved the straps that ran down my chest, and this moved the phallus slightly. I thought of all the cocks that had been inside me, their heat, the slippery sound of them passing in and out, and the phallus seemed to expand, to grow even harder and heavier, as if to remind me of it all, to punish me for it, to protract the pleasure.

  I thought of Lexius again, wondered where he was. Had the long whipping during the banquet been his only revenge? I flexed my buttocks, feeling the cold round rim of the phallus, feeling the smarting flesh tingle around it.

  The grooms oiled my cock very fast, as if they did not want to overstimulate it or reward it. When it was gleaming, they oiled my scrotum, massaging it with great gentleness. Then, the handsomer of the two, the one who smiled more often, pressed on my thighs until I bent my legs slightly in a fairly awkward squat. He nodded, and patted me approvingly. I glanced around and saw the others were standing in that way also. Every slave I saw had a very red backside. Some had been beaten on the thighs as well.

  It came over me with debilitating clarity that I looked as these others looked, the very posture exemplifying discipline and subservience. And for a moment I was weak all over.

  Then I saw Lexius in the doorway, watching me. He had his hands clasped in front of him, and his eyes were narrow and serious. The excitement in me, the confusion, doubled, tripled.

  My face burned as he approached. Yet I stood in the squatting position, eyes lowered, though I couldn’t lower my head, marveling at how difficult this was. Punished on the cross, easy. I did not have to cooperate. Now I cooperated. And he was here.

  His hand moved towards me, and I thought surely it was to slap me again, but it touched my hair, gently moving it back from my ear. The grooms then gave something to him. One glance and I saw: a pair of pretty jeweled nipple clamps with three very fine chains connecting them.

  My chest seemed more vulnerable, thrust out as it was, my shoulders painfully pulled back. The clamps went on fast, and I was panic-stricken because I couldn’t see them. The collar kept my chin too high. I couldn’t see the three little chains that must have shivered between the clamps, a humiliating decoration that would register each anxious breath I took like a banner registers the breeze even when it is too soft for you to feel it. The thing glowed in my imagination—the clamps, the chains. The pinching sensation was tantalizing.

  And Lexius was here, and I was again his personal prisoner. He touched my arm with maddening tenderness and guided me towards the door. I saw the other manacled slaves at a squat in the line. Their faces, held high by the stiff collars, wore an interesting dignity. Even with tears spilling and lips quivering, they had a new complexity. Tristan was there, his cock as hard as mine, and the clamps and chains stood out on his chest as I knew they did on mine, the obvious power of his body magnified by the style of the manacling.

  Lexius pushed me into the line behind Tristan, his left hand stroking Tristan’s hair affectionately. When he turned his full attention to me, giving my hair a more thorough combing now with the same comb he had used earlier for himself, I remembered the chamber, the heat of us together, the baffling exhilaration of being Master.

  Through my teeth I whispered:

  “Wouldn’t you rather be in line with us?”

  His eyes were only a few inches from mine, but he was looking at my hair. He went on with the comb as if I hadn’t spoken.

  “It is my destiny to be what I am,” he answered, his lips so still it seemed to come direct from his thoughts. “And I cannot change that any more than you can change yours!” He looked directly at me.

  “But I already have changed mine,” I said with a faint smile.

  “Not enough, I would say!” He gritted his teeth. “See that you please me and the Sultan, or you’ll pine on the garden walls for a year, I promise you.”

  “You won’t do that to me,” I said confidently. But his threat struck my heart.

  He stepped back before I could say anything else, and the line moved forward and I followed. When any slave forgot to bend his legs in the squat, he was rapped with the thong. It was the most degrading way to walk, and each step required conscious compliance.

  We moved to a central garden path, and down it single file, and all those in the garden were rising and coming towards the same walkway. Many were looking at us, pointing, gesturing. I found it as bad as being carried into the city from the boat earlier, this being on display, being paraded.

  Many other slaves were mounted again on the crosses. Some had been polished with gold, others with silver. I wondered if we had been chosen for our size or for the degree of punishment we’d received.

  But what did it matter?

  In this humiliating position, we moved on up the path as the crowd gathered on the edges of it. We came to a stop and were then divided to line both sides of the path facing each other. I took my position, with Tristan across from me. I could see and hear the crowd all around, but no one touched us or tormented us. Then the grooms came down the path, tapping our thighs and making us squat much lower. The crowd seemed to enjoy the change.

  The grooms made us squat as low as we could without losing our balance. My thighs were smacked over and over with the thong as I struggled to obey. I found it worse even than the little parade. And I felt the nipple clamps pinch me with each shudder that ran through me.

  But the air of anticipation suddenly sharpened. The crowd, towering over us and pressing in close so that their robes brushed us, looked towards the doors of the palace to my left. We stared at the path before us.

  Suddenly, a gong was sounded. All the Lords bowed from the waist. I knew someone was approaching on the path. I heard moans, soft muted sounds obviously coming from the slaves. I heard such sounds coming from the deepest parts of the garden. And those on my left began to moan, to twist their bodies supplicatingly.

  I felt I could not do this. But I remembered Lexius’s commands to us, how we must demonstrate our passion. And I had only to think of the words to be suddenly at the mercy of what I truly felt—the desire throbbing in my cock, throbbing in my whole soul, and a sense of my hopelessness and abject position. It was the Sultan who was coming, surely, the Lord who had ordained all this, taught our Queen to keep pleasure slaves, created this great scheme in which we were firmly held as powerless victims of our own desires as well as the pleasure of others. And the scheme was so much more fully realized here, so much more dramatically and efficiently executed.

  An eerie pride overcame me, a pride in my own beauty and strength and obvious subjugation. The moaning rose from me with genuine passion, and the tears flooded my eyes. I felt the bracelets holding my arms as I let the feeling move my limbs, let my chest expand, felt the heavy bronze phallus inside me. I wanted my humiliation and obedience to be recognized, if even for an instant. And I had been obedient, despite my little conquest of Lexius. I had been obedient in all other things. And I was overcome with delicious shame and desperation to please, moaning and undulating without resistance.

  He was coming nearer. There materialized in the corner of my swimming vision two figures carrying the poles of a high, fringed canopy. Then I saw the figure walking slowly under the canopy.

  A young man, perhaps a few years younger than Lexius, and of the same delicate-boned and narrow-limbed race, his body very straight under his heavy robes, his long scarlet cloak, his short dark hair free of any headdress.

 
He was looking from right to left as he passed. The slaves were crying softly but loudly without moving their lips. I saw him pause, reach out, and examine a slave, but I could not see the slave himself. This was all in luridly colored outline. He moved on now to the next slave, and this one I could see a little better—a black-haired slave with an immense cock who was weeping bitterly. Again he moved on, and this time his eyes passed over our side of the path, and I felt my sobs catching in my throat. What if he did not notice us?

  His robes were tightly fitted, I could see that now, and his hair, much shorter than that of the others, was like a dark halo around his head, and he had a quick and lively expression. Beyond that I couldn’t study him. No one had to tell me that it would have been unforgivable to look up at him.

  He turned to the other side of the path, though he was almost in front of me. And I wept unstintingly. But I saw he was looking at Tristan. And now he spoke, though I couldn’t see whom he addressed. I heard Lexius answer him. Lexius was behind him. He came forward, and together they conversed. And then Lexius snapped his fingers. And Tristan, still in the miserable squatting position, was made to walk off behind Lexius.

  So at least Tristan had been singled out. That was good. Or so it seemed, until I thought again that I might not be. And the tears slipped down my face as the Sultan turned back to us. Immediately, I saw him approach. I felt his hand on my hair. And the touch itself seemed to ignite to a blaze my smoldering anxiety and longing.

  And a strange thought came to me even in the midst of this terrible moment. All the aching in my thighs, the shuddering in my sore muscles, even the itching soreness of my backside—all of it belonged to this man, the Master. It belonged to him and would have its fullest meaning only if it pleased him. Lexius did not have to tell me so. The crowd, still at a bow, the row of helpless, manacled slaves, the rich canopy and those who held it, and all the rituals of the palace itself—all this told me so. And my nakedness in this moment seemed something quite beyond humiliation. My awkward position seemed perfect for the proper display, and the throbbing in my nipples and cock quite appropriate.

  The hand lingered. The fingers burned my cheek, caught the tears, grazed my lips. A sob broke from me, though I kept my lips shut. The fingers were right against them. Dare I kiss the fingers? All I saw was the purple of his robe. The gleam of his red slipper. Then I gave the kiss, and the fingers remained, curled, still, hot against my mouth.

  And, when I heard his voice, it was as if in a dream, Lexius’s soft answer following like an echo. The thong tapped my thighs. A hand cupped my head, turned me. I moved, keeping the low squat, and saw the whole garden again in a blaze of light. Saw the canopy moving on, saw those who carried the poles behind, saw Lexius following at the elbow of the Lord, and the figure of Tristan following with frightening dignity. I was put at Tristan’s side. We continued, part of the procession, together.

  LAURENT: THE ROYAL BEDCHAMBER

  IT SEEMED an hour that we were in the garden. But it could not have been a quarter of that time. And, when we reached the doors of the palace again, I was astonished because no other slaves had been chosen. Of course, we were new to the palace. Perhaps it was inevitable that we be observed. I didn’t know. I was only relieved that it had happened.

  And as we followed the Lord down the corridor, the canopy still over his head, a score of attendants coming behind, I felt the relief more profoundly than fear of what would now be asked of us.

  My thighs were aching and the muscles twitching uncontrollably from the squatting position as we came into a large and grandly decorated bedchamber. And at once, the subdued moans of the slaves who decorated the room rose to greet the Master. They were in niches in the walls. And bound to the posts of the bed. And, in the distant bath, their bodies circled the stone jet of a high fountain.

  We were made to stop and remain in the center of the room. Lexius moved to the far wall and stood with his hands behind his back and his head bowed.

  The grooms of the Sultan removed his cloak and his slippers, and he visibly relaxed, sending his servants away with an off-hand gesture. He turned and walked about as though taking a deep breath after the weight of the ceremonial procession. And he took not the slightest notice of the slaves whose moans grew softer, more unobtrusive, as though there were an etiquette to it.

  The bed behind him stood upon a dais and was draped in white and purple veils and covered with thickly tapes-tried covers. And those bound to the pillars were standing with arms tied high above them, some facing out, others facing in where obviously they might see the Master as he slept. In my dim vision, they looked as they had in the corridors—like statues. As I didn’t dare to turn my head or to look at any one particular thing, I could not even tell whether or not these slaves were men or women.

  As for the bath, all I could see was an immense pool of water beyond a row of thin, enameled columns, and the circle of slaves standing in the pool, the water spurting upwards and coming down quietly over their shoulders and bellies. Men and women there were in that circle, I could see, their wet bodies reflecting the torchlight becomingly.

  Beyond, the arched windows were open to the moon and to soft breezes and quiet night sounds.

  I felt hot all over and taut as a bowstring. In fact, I gradually realized I was terrified. And I knew that all such intimate scenes as this had always terrified me. I preferred the garden, the cross, even the procession with its horrid scrutiny. Not this silence in the bedroom which precursed the rawest and most heartfelt disasters of the soul, the most thorough subjugation.

  What if I did not understand the Lord’s commands, his obvious wishes? Waves of excitement passed over me, further heating me, and confusing me.

  The Lord meantime spoke to Lexius. And his voice sounded familiar and pleasant. Lexius answered with obvious respect but the same air of pleasantness. He pointed to us, but which of us I couldn’t know, and seemed to be explaining something.

  The Lord was amused and he drew near again, and put out his hands, touching our heads simultaneously. He rubbed my hair hard and affectionately, as if I was a good little animal that pleased him. The pain in my thighs worsened. And my heart seemed to open. I held steady, smelling the perfume that rose from his robes and knowing exquisitely that Lexius was pleased, Lexius was here, it was as he wanted. Our other games seemed embarrassingly insignificant. He was right about my destiny, right about destiny itself. And I was fortunate I had not ruined it.

  Lexius had come round behind me, and at the Lord’s command he gripped my collar and lifted me until I was in a straight standing position. Lovely relief to my legs, though Tristan was left as he was, but I felt suddenly more vulnerable and visible.

  I was turned around and I heard the Sultan laugh as he spoke, and I felt a hand touch my sore bottom. It played with the round rim of the wide phallus. And a sense of shame surprised me and inundated me. Lexius whipped the front of my knees as he bent my head down. I kept my legs ramrod straight and lowered my head and chest as far as I could. But having my arms bound to the phallus made it impossible for me to bend low. I was merely bent over.

  The hands examined the welts. My sense of shame deepened. But it didn’t mean I had been disobedient, did it, the redness, the evidence of the whipping? Other slaves had been whipped just for pleasure. And it pleased him obviously. Why else would he touch, comment? Nevertheless, I felt small and miserable, and my tears came again, and when I felt a little sob inside me, my chest tensed and all the straps pulled tight and my manacled arms pulled at the phallus. It made me sob a little harder, silently, feeling all of it, and his fingers dividing my buttocks as if to see my anus and then touching the hair there, smoothing it.

  He talked rapidly and pleasantly still to Lexius. I realized that at the palace at least the slave would have known what was said. This foreign tongue utterly dismissed us. I might have been the subject of their discourse. Or maybe it was about something else altogether.

  Whatever the case, Lexius whippe
d my chin teasingly with the thong. I straightened. He turned me by the hook in the phallus until I was facing the bath. I saw the Sultan to my right, though I didn’t look at him.

  Lexius whipped my calves sharply and quickly with four or five strokes, and I started to march, hoping this was correct, and then I saw him point the thong to the far row of columns, and I marched quickly towards the columns, feeling again a weird mixture of dignity and humiliation due to the straps and manacles.

  I heard the snap of his fingers when I had reached the columns, and I turned around, my face coloring, and I marched back, seeing the dim, blurred outline of the two robed figures watching me.

  I stepped high and fast, and the whole little procedure had its predictable effect. I felt more the slave than I had even moments ago, more than I had on the path. Lexius whipped me and pointed for me to turn again and repeat the march. And as I did so, weeping heavily and silently. I hoped that pleased them. It occurred to me as I came back across the room that it would be terrible if my tears were construed as impertinence, as a lack of submission. And this thought so frightened me that I was crying worse than before as I stopped before them. I stared forward, seeing nothing but the carvings on the far walls, the spirals, the leaves, tracery of pattern and color.

  The Sultan’s hand went up to my face and felt the tears as it had on the path. My throat was moving under the high collar with repeated sobs. And I felt I could hardly endure the sweetness of it, the maddening increase of tension, as he touched my naked chest, as he moved his hand away from my stinging nipples and down to touch my naval. If he touched my cock, I knew I might lose control. And this produced helpless moans.