Beauty's Punishment

by Ann Rice

  Ann Rice

  Writing as A. N. Roquelaure

  Beauty's Punishment

  THE STORY THUS FAR

  After her century-long slumber, the Sleeping Beauty opened her eyes at the kiss of the Prince, to find her garments stripped away and her heart as well as her body under the rule of her deliverer. At once, Beauty was claimed as the Prince's naked pleasure slave to be taken to his Kingdom.

  With the grateful consent of her parents, and dazed with desire for the Prince, Beauty was then brought to the Court of Queen Eleanor, the Prince's mother, to serve as one of hundreds of naked Princes and Princesses, all playthings of the Court until such time as they should be rewarded and sent home to their Kingdoms.

  Dazzled by the rigors of the Training Hall, the Hall of Punishments, the ordeal of the Bridle Path, and her own mounting passion to please, Beauty remained the undisputed favorite of the Prince and the delight of her sometime Mistress, the lovely young Lady Juliana.

  Yet she could not ignore her secret and forbidden infatuation with the Queen's exquisite slave, Prince Alexi, and finally the disobedient slave, Prince Tristan.

  After glimpsing Prince Tristan among the disgraced of the castle, Beauty, in a moment of seemingly inexplicable rebellion, brings upon herself the very same punishment destined for Tristan: to be sent away from the voluptuous Court to the degradation of harsh labor in the nearby village.

  As our story continues, Beauty has just been placed in the cart with Prince Tristan and the other disgraced slaves to be taken down the long road to the auction block in the village marketplace.

  BEAUTY'S PUNISHMENT

  THE PUNISHED

  Some, in desperation, glanced back at the high towers of the darkened castle. But no one was awake, it seemed, to hear their cries. And a thousand obedient slaves slept within, on the silken beds of the Slaves' Hall or in their Masters' and Mistresses' sumptuous chambers, unconcerned for those incorrigible ones who were borne away now in the wobbling, high-railed cart, towards the village auction.

  The Commander of the Patrol smiled to himself as he saw Princess Beauty, the Crown Prince's dearest slave, press towards the tall, heavily muscled figure of Prince Tristan. She had been the last to be loaded into the cart, and what a lovely slave she was, he mused, her long, straight, golden hair hanging loose down her back, her little mouth straining to kiss Tristan in spite of the leather bit that gagged her. And how could the disobedient Tristan, with his hands bound to his neck as securely as those of any other punished slave, solace her now, the Commander wondered?

  He debated with himself: Should he stop this illicit intimacy? It would be simple enough to pull Beauty out of the group and spread her legs as he bent her over the railing of the cart, spanking with his belt her plump disobedient little sex for its impudence. Maybe Tristan and Beauty, both, should be set down on the road and whipped behind the cart to teach them a good lesson.

  But in truth the Commander felt just a little bit sorry for the condemned slaves, spoilt as they were, even the willful Beauty and Tristan. By noon they would all have been sold from the block, and during the long summer months of village service they would learn plenty.

  The Commander rode alongside the cart now, catching another succulent little Princess with his belt, punishing the rosy pubic lips that peeped through a nest of glossy black curls, and he plied the strap all the harder when a long-limbed Prince sought gallantly to shield her.

  Nobility even in adversity, the Commander laughed to himself, and gave the Prince exactly what he deserved with the strap, all the more amused when he glimpsed the Prince's hard and writhing organ.

  Well-trained, the lot, he had to admit, the lovely Princesses with their nipples erect and faces flushed, the Princes trying to conceal their swelling cocks. And as sorry as the Commander felt for them, he couldn't help but think of the glee of the villagers.

  All year the villagers saved their money for this day, when only a few coins would purchase, for the whole summer long, a pampered slave who had been chosen for the Court, trained and groomed for the Court, and must now obey the lowliest kitchen maid or stable boy who bid high enough at the auction.

  And what an enticing group they were this time, their rounded limbs still fragrant with costly perfume, pubic hair still combed and oiled, as if they went to be presented to the Queen herself and not a thousand leering and eager villagers. Cobblers, Innkeepers, merchants awaited them, determined to exact hard labor for their money as well as pretty looks and abject humility.

  The cart jostled the crying slaves, tumbled them together. The distant castle was now no more than a great gray shadow against the lightening sky, its vast pleasure gardens concealed by the high walls that surrounded it.

  And the Commander smiled as he rode nearer to the thicket of lovely shaped calves and high-arched feet in the cart, seeing a half dozen splendid unfortunates pressed to the very front rail with no hope at all of escaping the soldiers' straps as the others crowded against them. All they could do was squirm under the playful assault, baring hips and backsides and bellies again to the sting of the belts as they bowed their tear-stained faces.

  It was a luscious sight indeed, rendered all the more interesting, perhaps, by the fact that they didn't really know what lay in store for them. No matter how much Court slaves were warned about the village, they were never really prepared for the shocks that awaited them. If they had really known, they would never, never have risked the Queen's displeasure.

  And the Commander couldn't help but think ahead to the end of summer when, thoroughly chastened, these same wailing and struggling young men and women would be brought back with heads bowed and tongues silent in utter submission. What a privilege it would be then to whip them one by one to press their lips to the Queen's slipper!

  So let them wail now, the Commander mused. Let them twist and turn as the sun rose over the rolling green hills and the cart lumbered ever faster down the long road to the village. And let the pretty little Beauty and the majestic young Tristan cleave to each other in the very middle of the press. They would soon learn what they had brought upon themselves.

  He might even stay for the auction this time, the Commander thought, or at least just long enough to see Beauty and Tristan separated and hoisted one after the other to that block as they deserved, and sold off to their new owners.

  BEAUTY AND TRISTAN

  "But, Beauty, why did you do it?" Prince Tristan whispered. "Why did you disobey deliberately? Did you want to be sent to the village?"

  All around them in the rolling cart the Princes and Princesses whimpered and bawled hopelessly. But Tristan had worked loose the cruel little leather bit that had gagged him, and let it drop to the floor. And Beauty at once did the same, freeing herself of the mean device with the aid of her tongue and spitting it away from her with delicious defiance.

  After all, they were condemned slaves, were they not, so what did it matter? They had been given by their parents as naked tributes to the Queen, told to obey during their years of service. But they had failed. They were now condemned to hard labor and cruel use by the common people.

  "Why, Beauty?" Tristan pressed. But no sooner did he ask the question again than he covered Beauty's open mouth with his own so that Beauty could only receive the kiss, standing on tiptoe, Tristan's organ lifting her moist sex which hungered for him desperately. If only their hands were not bound, if only she could embrace him!

  Suddenly Beauty's feet no longer touched the floor of the cart, and she tumbled forward against Tristan's chest, riding him, the throbbing inside her so violent that it obliterated the cries and loud wallops of the mounted soldiers' leather straps, and Beauty felt her breath sucked up and out of her.

  For eternity she seemed to floa
t, unanchored to the real world of the immense creaking wooden cart with its high wheels, the taunting guards, the paling sky arching high over the soft dark hills and the dim prospect of the village lying under a blue mist far below them. There was no rising sun, no clop of the horses hooves, no soft limbs of other struggling slaves mashed against her sore buttocks. There was only this organ splitting her, lifting her, and then driving her remorselessly to a silent yet deafening explosion of pleasure. Her back arched, her legs out straight, her nipples throbbing against Tristan's warm flesh, her mouth filled with Tristan's tongue at the same instant.

  And dimly through the ecstasy, she felt Tristan's hips go into their final irresistible rhythm. She could not bear any more, yet the pleasure was fragmented, multiplied, washing through her over and over. In some realm beyond thought, she felt she was not human. The pleasure dissolved the humanity she had known. And she was not Princess Beauty, brought as a slave to serve in the Prince's castle. Yet most certainly she was, because this excruciating pleasure had been learned there.

  She knew only the soft wet pulse of her sex and the organ lifting her and holding her. And Tristan's kisses growing more tender, more sweet, more lingering. A weeping slave pressed against her back, hot flesh against her own, and another warm body crushed against her right side, a great sweep of silky hair brushing her naked shoulder.

  "But why, Beauty?" Tristan whispered again, his lips still touching hers. "You must have done it deliberately, run from the Crown Prince. You were too admired, too accomplished." His deep almost-violet-blue eyes were thoughtful, meditative, reluctant to reveal him completely.

  His face was a little larger than that of most men, the bones strong, perfectly symmetrical, yet the features were almost delicate, and the voice was low and more commanding than the voices of those who had been Beauty's Masters. But there was nothing but intimacy in the voice, and that, and Tristan's long eyelashes, gold in the light of the sun, gave him a touch of enchantment. He spoke to Beauty as though they had been slave companions forever.

  "I don't know why I did it," Beauty whispered in answer. "I can't explain, but yes, it must have been deliberate." She kissed his chest, quickly finding the nipples and kissing them both and then sucking them hard one after the other so that she felt his organ thump against her again, though he begged her softly for mercy.

  Of course, the punishments of the castle had been voluptuous; it had been exciting to be the playthings of a rich Court, to be the object of relentless attention. Yes, it had been infatuating and confusing, the exquisitely tooled leather paddles and straps and the welts they caused, the exacting discipline that had so often left her crying and breathless. And the warm perfumed baths afterwards, the massages with fragrant oils, the hours of half-sleep in which she dared not contemplate the tasks and trials that awaited her.

  Yes, it had been heady and seductive and even terrifying.

  And surely she had loved the tall, black-haired Crown Prince with his mysterious unnamed dissatisfactions, and the lovely sweet Lady Juliana with her pretty blond braids, both of whom had been such talented tormentors.

  So why had Beauty thrown it all away? Why, when she had seen Tristan in the stockade with its crowd of disobedient Princes and Princesses, all condemned to be auctioned in the village, had she deliberately disobeyed in order to be sent to the village with them?

  She could still remember Lady Juliana's brief description of the fate awaiting them:

  "It is wretched service. The auction itself takes place as soon as they arrive and you can well suppose that even the beggars and the common louts about town are there to witness it. Why, the whole village declares a holiday."

  And then that strange remark from Beauty's Master, the Crown Prince, who never dreamed at that moment that Beauty would soon disgrace herself: "Ah, but for all its roughness and cruelty," he had said, "it is sublime punishment."

  Was it those words that had undone her?

  Did she long to be hurled downward, away from the high Court of ornate and clever rituals imposed upon her, into some wilderness of disregard where the humiliations and spanking blows would come just as hard and just as fast but with a greater, more savage abandon?

  Of course, there would be the same limits. Not even in the village could a slave's flesh be broken; never could a slave be burned or truly harmed. No, her punishments would all enhance. And she knew by now just how much could be accomplished with the innocent-looking black leather strap and deceptively decorated leather paddle.

  But in the village she would be no Princess. Tristan would be no Prince. And the crude men and women who worked them and punished them would know that with every gratuitous blow they were doing the Queen's bidding.

  Suddenly Beauty couldn't think. Yes, it had been deliberate, but had she made some dreadful error?

  "And you, Tristan," she said suddenly, trying to conceal the quavering of her voice. "Was it not deliberate with you, too? Didn't you deliberately provoke your Master?"

  "Yes, Beauty, but there's a long story behind it," Tristan said. And Beauty could see the apprehension in his eyes, the dread he couldn't admit either. "I served Lord Stefan, as you know, but what you don't know is that a year ago in another land, as equals, Lord Stefan and I were lovers." The large violet-blue eyes became a little more penetrable, the lips a little warmer as they smiled almost sadly.

  Beauty gasped to hear this.

  The sun was fully risen now, and the cart had taken a sharp turn in the road and the descent was slower over uneven terrain, the slaves pitched more roughly than ever against one another.

  "You can imagine our surprise," Tristan said, "when we discovered ourselves Master and slave at the castle, and when the Queen, seeing the blush on Lord Stefan's face, immediately gave me over to him with the sharp instructions that he train me himself to be perfect."

  "Unbearable," Beauty said. "To have known him before, to have walked with him, spoken with him. How could you submit?"

  All her Masters and Mistresses had been strangers to her, defined perfectly in the instant she realized her helplessness and vulnerability. She had known the color and texture of their magnificent slippers and boots, the sharp tones of their voices, before she had known their names or their faces.

  But Tristan gave the same mysterious smile. "O, I think it was far worse for Stefan than for me," he whispered in her ear. "You see, we had met before at a great tournament, struggling against each other, and in every feat I'd bested him. When we hunted together, I had been the better shot and the better horseman. He had admired me and looked up to me, and I had loved him for it because I knew the extent of his pride and the love that equaled it. When we coupled, I was the leader.

  "But we had to return to our Kingdoms. We had to return to the duties that awaited us. Three stolen nights of love we had, maybe more, in which he yielded as a boy might to a man. Then letters that at last became too painful to write. Then war. Silence. Stefan's Kingdom allied with that of the Queen. And later, her armies at our gates, and this strange meeting in the Queen's castle: I on my knees waiting to be given to a worthy Master, and Stefan, the Queen's young kinsman, sitting silently at her right at the banquet table." Tristan smiled again. "No, it was worse for him. I blush with shame to admit it, but my heart leapt when I saw him. And it is I who, out of spite, have triumphed by abandoning him."

  "Yes," Beauty understood this because she knew she had done it to the Crown Prince and Lady Juliana. "But the village, weren't you afraid?" Again there came the quavering in her voice. How far were they from the village, even as they spoke of it? "Or was it simply the only way?" she asked softly.

  "I don't know. There must have been more to it than that," Tristan whispered, but then he stopped as though bewildered. "But if you must know," he confessed, "I am terrified." Yet he said it so calmly, his voice so full of quiet assurance that Beauty couldn't believe it.

  The groaning cart had made another turn. The guards had ridden ahead to hear some orders from their Command
er. The slaves whispered among themselves, all too obedient and fearful still to discard the little leather bits in their mouth, yet able to consult frantically on what lay ahead as the cart rocked on slowly.

  "Beauty," Tristan said, "we'll be separated when we reach the village, and no one knows what may happen to us. Be good, obey; it can't ultimately –" And again he stopped, unsure. "It can't ultimately be worse than the castle."

  And now Beauty thought she heard the barest tinge of real trepidation in his voice, but his face was almost hard when she looked up at him, only the beautiful eyes softening it just a little. She could see the slightest golden stubble of beard on his chin, and she wanted to kiss it.

  "Will you watch for me after we're separated, try to find me, if only to say a few words to me?" Beauty said. "O, just to know you are there... but I don't think I will be good. I don't see why I should be good any longer. We're bad slaves, Tristan. Why should we obey now?"

  "What do you mean?" he asked. "You make me afraid for you."

  From far away, there came the faint roar of voices, the sound of a large crowd carrying sluggishly over the low hills, the dim vibration of a village fair, of hundreds talking, shouting, milling.

  Beauty pressed close to Tristan's chest. She felt a stab of excitement between her legs, her heart knocking. Tristan's organ was hard again, but it was not inside of her, and it was an agony again that her hands were bound so she couldn't touch it.

  Her question seemed meaningless suddenly, yet she repeated it, the distant noise growing louder. "Why must we obey if we are already punished?"

  Tristan too heard the distant swelling sounds. The cart was picking up speed.

  "We were told at the castle that we must obey," Beauty said, "our parents had willed it when they sent us to the Queen and the Prince as Tributes. But now we're bad slaves..."

  "Our punishment will only be worse if we disobey," Tristan said, but there was something strange in his eyes that betrayed his voice. He sounded false, as if repeating something he thought he should say for her good.