by Ann Rice
"Lovely little Princess!" he was calling out, the turntable whirling suddenly, so that she almost fell forward. She saw behind her hundreds and hundreds crowded back to the village gates, more balconies and windows, soldiers lounging along the battlements above. "Hair like spun gold and ripe little breasts!"
The auctioneer's arm wound round her, squeezing her bosom hard, pinching her nipples. She let out a scream behind her closed lips, yet felt the immediate surge between her legs. But if he should take her by the hair as he had done Tristan...
And even as she thought it, she felt herself forced to bow from the waist in the same fashion, her breasts seeming to swell with their own weight as they dangled beneath her. And the paddle found her buttocks again, to the screaming delight of the crowd. Claps, laughs, shouts, as the auctioneer lifted her face with the stiff black leather, though he kept her bent over, spinning the turntable faster. "Lovely endowments, fit surely for the finest household, who would waste this pretty morsel in the fields?"
"Sell her into the fields!" someone shouted. And there were more cheers and laughter. And when the paddle smacked her again, Beauty gave out a humiliating wail.
The auctioneer clamped his hand over her mouth and he forced her up with her chin in the air, letting her go to stand with her back arched. "I will collapse, I will faint," Beauty thought, her heart pounding in her breast, but she was standing there, enduring it, even as she felt the sudden tickle of the leather-covered rod between her pubic lips. "O, not that, he cannot..." she thought, but already her wet sex was swelling, hungering for the rough stroking of the rod. She squirmed away from it.
The crowd roared.
And she realized she was twisting her hips in horrid vulgar fashion to escape the sharp prodding examination.
There was more clapping and shouting as the auctioneer forced the rod deep into her hot wet pubis, calling out all the while, "Dainty, elegant little girl, fit for the finest lady's maid or gentleman's diversion!" Beauty knew her face was scarlet. Never at the castle had she known such exposure. And as her legs gave out from under her again, she felt the auctioneer's sure hand lifting her wrists above her head until she dangled above the platform, and the leather paddle slapped at her helpless calves and the soles of her feet.
Without meaning to, Beauty kicked helplessly. She lost all control.
Screaming behind her clenched teeth, she struggled madly as she hung in the man's grip. A strange, desperate abandon came over her as the paddle licked at her sex, slapping it and stroking it, and the screams and roars deafened her. She did not know whether she was longing for the torment or wildly trying to shut it out.
Her own frantic breaths and sobs filled her ears, and she knew suddenly that she was giving the onlookers precisely the kind of show they adored. They were getting much more from her than they had from Tristan, and she did not know whether or not she cared. Tristan was gone. She was forsaken.
The paddle punished her, stinging her and driving her hips out in a wild arc, only to stroke her wet pubic hair again, inundating her with waves of pleasure as well as pain.
In pure defiance, she swung her body with all her force, almost pulling loose from the auctioneer, who gave a loud astonished laugh. The crowd was shrieking as he sought to steady her, his tight fingers biting into her wrists as he hoisted her higher, and out of the corner of her eye Beauty saw two crudely dressed varlets rushing towards the platform.
At once they bound her wrists to the leather chain that hung from the gibbet above her head. Now she dangled free, the auctioneer's paddle turning her with his blows as she sobbed and tried to hide her face in her upstretched arm.
"We haven't all day to amuse ourselves with the little Princess," the auctioneer cried, though the crowd urged him on with shouts of "Spank her," "Punish her."
"Calling for a firm hand and severe discipline for this lovely lady, what am I bid?" He twisted Beauty, smacking the soles of her naked feet with the paddle, pushing her head through her arms so that she could not conceal her face.
"Lovely breasts, tender arms, delectable buttocks, and a sweet little pleasure cleft fit for the gods!"
But the bids were already flying, topped so quickly he did not have to repeat them, and through her swimming eyes Beauty saw the hundreds of faces gazing up at her, the young men crowded to the very edge of the platform, a pair of young women whispering and pointing, and beyond an old woman leaning on a cane as she studied Beauty, raising a withered finger now to offer a bid.
Again the sense of abandon came over her, the defiance, and she kicked and wailed behind her closed lips, wondering that she didn't shout aloud. Was it more humiliating to admit that she could speak? Would her face have been more scarlet had she been made to demonstrate that she was a thinking, feeling creature, and not some dumb slave?
Her sobs were her only answer to herself, her legs pulled wide apart now as the bidding continued, the auctioneer spreading her buttocks with the leather rod as he had done to Tristan, stroking her anus so that she squealed and clenched her teeth, and twisted, even trying to kick him if she could.
But he was now confirming the highest bid, and then another, and trying to coax more out of the crowd until she heard him announce in that same deep voice:
"Sold to the Innkeeper, Mistress Jennifer Lockley of the Sign of the Lion, for the grand sum of twenty-seven pieces of gold, this spirited and amusing little Princess, surely to be whipped for her bread and butter as much as anything else!"
LESSONS FROM MISTRESS LOCKLEY
The crowd applauded as Beauty was unchained and rushed down the steps, her hands clasped behind her back so that her breasts jutted forward. She was not surprised to feel a strip of leather being forced into her mouth. It was buckled tight to the back of her head and her wrists were buckled to it, which also did not surprise her after the struggle she had made.
"So let them do it!" she thought desperately. And when two long reins were brought round from this same buckle on the back of her head and given to the tall black-haired woman standing before the platform, Beauty thought, "Very clever. She will pull me along after her as if I were a little beast."
The woman was studying her as the Chronicler had studied Tristan, her face vaguely triangular and almost beautiful, her black hair free down her back save for one thin braid over her forehead which seemed a decorative way to keep the full dark tresses out of her face. She wore a gorgeous red velvet bodice and skirt with a puff-sleeved linen blouse.
"Rich Innkeeper," Beauty thought. The tall woman pulled the reins hard, almost jerking Beauty off her feet, and then she slung the reins over her shoulder, dragging Beauty into a fast and unwilling trot behind her.
The villagers pushed in on Beauty, shoving her, prodding her, smacking her sore buttocks and telling her what a bad girl she was, and asking her how she liked that slap, and saying how they'd like to have an hour alone with her to make her behave. But she had her eyes on the woman, and she was trembling all over, her mind curiously empty, as if she weren't thinking at all.
Yet she was thinking. She was thinking, as she had before, "Why shouldn't I be as bad as I like?" But she burst into fresh tears suddenly, and why, she didn't know. The woman was walking so fast that Beauty had to trot, whether she wanted to or not, obeying, whether she meant to or not, and the fresh tears stung her eyes and made the colors of the square flow into one hot shifting cloud.
They entered a little street, rushing past stragglers who barely glanced to the side as they moved in the marketplace. And very quickly Beauty was trotting over the cobblestones of a silent and empty little lane that twisted and turned under the dark half-timbered houses with their diamond-paned windows and brightly painted shutters and doors.
Shingles everywhere announced the trades of the village; here hung the boot of the shoemaker and there the leather glove of the glove maker, and the crude painting of a gold cup to mark the dealer in silver and gold plate.
A strange quiet fell over Beauty, in which all the littl
e aches of her body burned brighter. She felt her head pulled forward hard by the leather reins that brushed her cheeks. She breathed anxiously against the strip of leather that gagged her, and for one moment something about the entire scene surprised her, the winding lane, the deserted little shops, the tall woman in the red velvet bodice and broad red skirt walking in front of her, her long black hair curling loosely down her narrow back. It seemed to have happened before, all of it, or rather to be quite the ordinary thing.
Of course it couldn't have happened. But Beauty felt as if she belonged here in some odd way, and the searing terror of the marketplace was drained away. She was naked, yes, and her thighs burned with welts as did her buttocks – she dared not even think of how she looked – and her breasts as always sent that full throb through her, and there was as ever that terrible secret pulsing between her legs. Yes, her sex, teased so cruelly by the strokes of that smooth paddle, was maddening her still.
But these things were almost sweet now. Even the slap of her bare feet on the sun-warmed cobblestones was almost good. And she felt vaguely curious about the tall woman. And she wondered what she, Beauty, would do next.
She had never really wondered that at the castle. She had been afraid of what she would be made to do. But she was not sure now that she should be made to do anything. She didn't know.
And again there was that feeling of utter normality in the fact that she was a naked, bound slave, a punished slave, being jerked cruelly through this lane. It crossed her mind that this tall woman knew precisely how to handle her, rushing her along like this, past all chance of rebellion. And that fascinated her.
She let her gaze drift up the walls, and she realized that there were people in the windows here and there watching her. Ahead she saw a woman with her arms folded before her as she looked down. And across the way farther on was a young man sitting on the window-sill who smiled at her and blew her a little kiss, and then there appeared in the lane a coarsely dressed man with bowed legs who took off his hat to "Mistress Lockley" and bowed as she went past. His eyes barely touched on Beauty, but he gave her buttocks a pat as she went by.
That odd feeling of the regularity of it began to confuse Beauty. At the same time she luxuriated in it, as she was brought swiftly into another very large cobble-stoned square, this one with a public well in the center, surrounded on all sides by the signs of various Inns.
There was the Sign of the Bear and the Sign of the Anchor, and the Sign of the Crossed Swords, but by far the most magnificent was the gilded Sign of the Lion, hanging high over a vast carriageway and under three stories of deeply cut leaded windows. But the most startling detail of all was the body of a naked Princess swaying beneath the sign, bound with her ankles and her wrists together on a leather chain, so that she hung like ripe fruit from the shingle, her naked red sex painfully exposed.
It was exactly the way that Princes and Princesses had been tethered in the Punishment Hall at the castle, a position Beauty had never suffered and that she dreaded most of all. The Princess's face was fixed between her legs only inches above her swollen and mercilessly revealed sex, and her eyes were almost closed. When she saw Mistress Lockley she moaned and wriggled on the chain, straining forward in supplication, just as the punished Princes and Princesses had done in the Hall of Punishments.
Beauty's heart stopped when she saw the girl. But she was pulled right past her, quite unable to turn her head for a better view of the unfortunate, and trotted into the main room of the Inn.
Despite the warmth of the day the enormous room was cool, and a little cooking fire blazed on the giant hearth under a steaming iron kettle. There were dozens of smoothly polished tables and benches spread out over the vast tiled floor. Giant kegs lined the walls. There was a long shelf at one end coming out from the hearth and, on the far wall opposite, what appeared to be a crude little stage.
A long rectangular counter extended towards the door from the hearth, and behind it stood a man with a flagon in his hand and his elbow resting on the wood as if ready to serve ale to any who asked for it. He lifted his shaggy head and caught Beauty with small deep-set dark eyes, and smiling said, "Quite well you've done, I see," to Mistress Lockley.
Beauty's eyes took a moment to get used to the shadows, and when they did she realized there were many other naked slaves in the room. One naked Prince with beautiful black hair was on his knees in the far corner scrubbing the floor with a heavy brush that he held by its wooden handle with his teeth. A dark blond Princess was set to the same task just inside the doorway. Another young woman, her brown hair coiled on top of her head, polished a bench on her knees, mercifully allowed to use her hands to do it. Two others, a Prince and Princess, their hair free, knelt at the far edge of the hearth in the blaze of sunlight from the back door, polishing pewter plates vigorously.
None of these slaves even dared to glance at Beauty. Their whole attitude was one of obedience, and as the little Princess with the scrub brush hurried on to wash the floor very near Beauty's feet, Beauty saw her legs and buttocks had recently been punished.
"But who are these slaves?" Beauty thought. She was almost sure that she and Tristan had been among the first load to be sentenced to hard labor. Were these the incorrigibles who behaved so badly they had been consigned for a year to the village?
"Get the wooden paddle," said Mistress Lockley to the man at the bar. She pulled Beauty forward and quickly threw her over the counter.
Beauty gave a groan before she could stop herself, feeling her legs dangling off the floor. She had not made up her mind whether she should obey when she felt the woman unfastening the gag and the buckle, and then slapping her hands to the back of her neck.
But the woman's other hand had passed between Beauty's legs and the searching fingers found her wet sex and swelling lips and even the burning kernel of the clitoris that caused Beauty to clench her teeth against a pitious moan.
The woman's hand left her in torment.
Beauty breathed freely for an instant, and then she felt the smooth surface of the wooden paddle being pressed softly to her buttocks, and the welts seemed to burn anew.
Red with shame over the little examination, Beauty tensed, waiting for the inevitable spanking, but it didn't come. Mistress Lockley twisted her face so that Beauty could see to the left through the open door.
"Do you see that pretty Princess hanging from the sign?" The Mistress asked. And grasping Beauty's hair she pushed and pulled her head into a nod. Beauty understood that she mustn't speak, and she decided for the moment to obey. She nodded of her own accord. The Princess's body turned a little this way and that on the chain. Beauty could not remember if her unfortunate sex had been wet or shy beneath its inadequate veil of pubic hair.
"Do you want to hang there instead of her?" asked Mistress Lockley. Her voice was flat and severe and cold.
"Do you want to hang there hour after hour day after day with that hungry little mouth of yours starved and gaping for all the world to see?"
Quite truthfully Beauty shook her head no.
"Then you'll stop the insolence and rebelliousness you showed on the auction block, and you'll obey every command given you, and you'll kiss your Master's and Mistresses's feet, and you'll whimper in gratitude for your supper when you get it and lick the plate clean!"
She forced Beauty's head into a nod again, and Beauty felt the oddest sensation of excitement. She nodded once more, of her own accord. Her sex pulsed against the wood of the bar.
The woman's hand moved under her and gathered her breasts together, holding them like two soft peaches plucked off a tree. Beauty's nipples burned.
"We understand each other, don't we?" she said.
And Beauty, after a strange moment of hesitation, nodded.
"Now understand this," said the woman in the same no-nonsense voice, "I'm going to spank you till you're raw. And there won't be any rich Lords and Ladies to delight in it, nor any soldiers or other gentlemen to enjoy it, just you and I preparin
g for the Inn to open for the day and doing what must be done. And I'm doing it for one reason only and that is so you'll be so sore that the touch of my fingernail will make you squeal and scurry to obey my commands. You'll stay raw like that every day this summer that you're my slave, and you'll scamper to kiss my slippers after I spank you, because if you don't you'll dangle from that sign. Hour by hour day after day you'll dangle there, let down only to sleep and eat with your legs bound apart, and your hands bound behind your back and your buttocks spanked just as it's going to be spanked now. And put back to hang there again where the village toughs can laugh at you, and laugh at that hungry little sex. Do you understand?"
The woman waited, her hands still cradling Beauty's breasts, her other hand on Beauty's hair.
Very slowly, Beauty nodded.
"Very good," said the woman softly. She turned Beauty and stretched her out on the length of the counter with her head towards the door. She scooped up Beauty's chin so that Beauty was looking straight through the open door and at the poor dangling Princess, and then the wooden paddle lay against her buttocks again, pressing gently on her welts and making her buttocks feel enormous and hot.
Beauty lay still. She was almost basking in the odd calm she had felt in the cobblestoned lane, but coupled with it was the mounting excitement between her legs. It was as if the excitement cleared everything – even fear and trepidation – out of its path. Or rather the woman's voice cleared these things away. "I might disobey if I wanted to," Beauty thought, in that same strange calm. Her sex was unbelievably swollen and wet.
"Now listen further," Mistress Lockley went on. "When this paddle comes down, you're going to move for me, Princess. You're going to twist and you're going to groan. You're not going to struggle to get away from me. You wouldn't do that. And you're not going to take your hands from the back of your neck. And you're not going to open your mouth either. But you're going to twist and groan. You're going to bounce under my paddle, in fact. Because with every blow you are going to show me how you feel it, and how you appreciate it, and how grateful you are for the punishment you're receiving, and how much you know it's what you deserve. And if that is not exactly what happens, you will be dangling from the sign by the time the auction stops and the crowds come and the soldiers are ready for their first flagon of ale."
