by Ann Rice
"This is how a bad little girl should be punished," the Mistress said.
"Yes, Mistress," Beauty sobbed immediately.
Mercifully the fingers were withdrawn. Beauty's breasts felt huge, heavy, a riot of warm pain and thumping sensation against her. Her low, raw sighs caught in her throat.
And she whimpered when she realized what was coming. She could feel Mistress Lockley's fingers between her legs, pushing the lips apart even as Beauty sought to close herself, the muscles in her legs straining vainly. Her heels thumped the wood, the leather straps pressing into the flesh of her insteps. Again she lost all control, struggling violently in a deluge of tears. But the licking strap was slapping her clitoris. She screamed again at the searing intensity of the mixture of pleasure and pain, her clitoris seeming to harden as never before, the strap snapping up at it over and over as Mistress Lockley swung from beneath the sex with her right hand.
Beauty could feel the lips puffing, the moisture squirting, the slaps sounding wetter and wetter. Her head rolled on the wood; she cried louder and louder, her hips riding up to meet the strap, her whole sex a formless explosion of fire in her.
The strap stopped. It was worse, the heat rising, the tingling like an itch that must somehow find its divine friction. Beauty's breath came in short imploring pants in time with her moans, and through her tears she saw Mistress Lockley looking down at her.
"Are you my impertinent slave?" she asked.
"Your devoted slave," Beauty choked through her tears, "Mistress. Your devoted slave." And she bit her lip, grimacing, praying it was the right answer.
Her breasts and her sex were boiling with the heat, and she heard her hips spanking the wood beneath them, though she had no awareness of moving them. Through the mist of tears she saw the Mistress's pretty black eyes, the black hair with its fancy little braid over the crown of the head, and the breasts swelling so beautifully in the snow-white linen blouse with its thick ruffle. But the Mistress was holding something in her hands. What was it? It was moving.
And Beauty saw it was a big, pretty white cat that stared at her with almond-shaped blue eyes in that wide, inquisitive manner cats have, its pink tongue licking its black nose in a quick gesture.
A wave of absolute shame overcame Beauty. She writhed on the board, a helpless and suffering creature, even more lowly than this proud, disdainful little beast that peered at her from the Mistress's arms with jeweled eyes. But the Mistress had bent down, apparently to reach for something.
And Beauty saw her rise again with a thick dab of yellow cream on her fingers. The fingers smeared the cream to Beauty's throbbing nipples and dabbed it between her legs so that it dripped and slid in dollops into her vagina.
"Just butter, my sweet, fresh butter," said the Mistress. "No perfumed ointments here." And suddenly she dropped the cat on all fours on Beauty's tender belly and chest, and Beauty felt the soft pads of the cat's feet moving up her chest with maddening quickness.
She squirmed, pulled on the straps. The little beast had dipped its head, and the rough, sandy little tongue was eating at her nipple, devouring the butter that covered it. Some deep, deep, hitherto unknown fear made itself known, sending Beauty into wilder and wilder struggles.
But the indifferent little monster with its exquisite white face ate on and on, the nipple exploding under the licks, and Beauty's whole body went tense, lifting itself off the wood and thudding down again.
The creature was lifted, taken to the right breast, and Beauty pulled with all her strength on the straps, the sobs shaking out of her, the little hind feet padding deeply into her belly, the soft stomach hairs of the cat brushing her as the tongue lapped again, cleaning the nipple thoroughly.
Beauty clenched her teeth not to scream the word "No," her eyes squeezing shut again, only to open on the sight of the heart-shaped face dipping down in short quick movements as the tongue lapped, the nipple pushed back and forth by the strength of the sandy lick, the sensation so exquisite, so dreadful, that Beauty screamed louder than she had ever screamed under the paddle.
But the cat was being lifted. Beauty thrashed from side to side, clenching her teeth harder on the "No" that must not come out as she felt those silky ears and that fur between her legs, and the tongue darting at her distended clitoris. "O, but please, no, no," she screamed in the sanctuary of her mind, even as the pleasure jetted through her, mingling with the loathing of the hairy little feline and its horrid mindless feasting. Her hips froze in the air, inches above the wood, the furry nose and mouth pushing deeper and deeper into her. No more tongue on the clitoris, just the maddening brushing of the top of the head against it, and it wasn't enough, it wasn't enough. O, the little monster!
To her utter shame and defeat, Beauty struggled to press her pubis against the creature, to press on the little skull, to make it stroke the clitoris with the slightest pressure. But the tongue had gone down lower, lapping the base of her vagina, lapping the crack of her buttocks, and her sex hungered vainly as the pleasure passed into a high-pitched torment.
Beauty gritted her teeth and shook her head about as the tongue lapped at her pubic hair, as it took what it wanted, oblivious to the desire that racked her.
And when she thought she could stand it no more, that she would go mad, the cat was lifted away. It peered down at her from Mistress Lockley's arms, the Mistress smiling just as sweetly as the cat smiled, it seemed, above her.
"Witch!" Beauty thought, but she did not dare to speak, and she closed her eyes, her sex quivering with all the desire she had ever known collected in it.
Mistress Lockley released the cat. It was gone, out of sight. And Beauty felt the straps on her wrists released, and then the straps on her ankles.
She lay shuddering, resisting with all her will the desire to close her legs, to turn over on the board, hugging her breasts with one hand while with the other she touched her burning sex in an orgy of private pleasure.
There would be no such mercy for her.
"Get down on your hands and knees," said Mistress Lockley. "I think you're finally ready for the paddle."
Beauty climbed to the floor.
And in confusion she turned to hurry after the little boots that were already far away as they clicked sharply out of the kitchen.
The movement of her legs as she crawled only intensified the craving in her.
And when they reached the counter in the front room of the Inn, she climbed up at once to the snap of Mistress Lockley's fingers.
People were passing back and forth in the square; they chatted at the rim of the well. Two village girls came in with a cheerful hello to Mistress Lockley as they proceeded past her into the kitchen.
Beauty lay shuddering, her little cries like stutters, her chin propped, her buttocks waiting for the paddle.
"You remember I told you I'd cook your buttocks for breakfast!" Mistress Lockley said in that cold, toneless voice.
"Yes, Mistress!" Beauty sobbed.
"No words from you now. Only the nod of that head!"
Beauty nodded, despite her propped head, furiously.
Her sore breasts were pure warmth against the wood, her sex dripping. The tension was unbearable.
"You've been well sauced in your own juices," Mistress Lockley asked, "now, haven't you?"
Beauty gave forth a loud whimpering wail, not knowing how to answer.
Mistress Lockley's hand kneaded her buttocks hard, plumped them as she had done the breasts.
And then they came, the hard punishing spanks, and Beauty bounced and writhed and cried behind her teeth as if she had never known resistance, dignity. Anything to please this dreadful, cold, uncompromising Mistress, anything to make her know Beauty would be good, she wasn't a bad girl, she had been all wrong. And Tristan had warned her. The spanking went on and on, truly chastising her.
"Is that not enough, is that well done enough?!" the Mistress demanded, driving the paddle ever faster and faster. She stopped and laid her cool open hand on the b
lazing skin.
"Yes, I think we have a nice well-done little Princess!"
And she flailed again, Beauty's sobs pouring as if they had been purged out of her.
And the thought that she must wait till evening, wait for the Captain before her tormented sex would know its release, brought the sobs out of her in almost luscious abandon.
It was over. The cracks still rang in her ears. She could still feel the paddle as if in a dream. And her sex was like a hollow chamber in which all the pleasures she had known left their loud, reverberating echo. And it would be hours and hours before the Captain came. Hours and hours...
"Get up and get down on your knees," Mistress Lockley had just said. Why was she hesitating?
She dropped to the floor and pressed her lips frantically to Mistress Lockley's boots, kissing the sharp little points of the toes, the shapely little ankles showing beneath the fine casing of leather. She felt Mistress Lockley's petticoats on her damp forehead and on the hair, and her kisses became all the more fervent.
"Now you'll work to clean this Inn from top to bottom," Mistress Lockley said, "and you'll keep your legs wide apart as you do it." Beauty nodded.
Mistress Lockley walked away from her towards the Inn door. "Where are my other lovelies?" she murmured crossly under her breath. "The Punishment Shop takes forever."
Beauty knelt looking at Mistress Lockley's fine little figure against the light of the door, the tiny waist so flattered by the white band and sash of the apron. Beauty sniffled. "Tristan, you were right," she thought. "It's hard to be bad all the time." And she wiped her nose on the back of her hand silently.
The big white slinky cat came round, padding into view only inches from Beauty. And she shrank back, biting her lip again, and then she covered her head with her arms, because Mistress Lockley was just idly leaning on the Inn door, and the great furry cat was coming closer and closer.
CONVERSATION WITH PRINCE RICHARD
It was late afternoon. Beauty lay on the cool grass with the other slaves, stirred only now and then by the prodding stick of one of the kitchen girls, who forced her legs apart roughly. Yes, she must not press her legs together, she thought drowsily. The day's work had exhausted her. She had dropped a handful of pewter spoons and been chained upside down to the kitchen wall for an hour. On all fours, she had carried the heavy laundry baskets on her back to the clotheslines and knelt still while the village girls, hanging up the sheets, chatted around her. She had scrubbed and cleaned and polished, and been paddled at every evidence of clumsiness or hesitation. And kneeling, she had lapped her dinner from the same big dish as the other slaves, silently thankful for the cool spring water that followed.
Now it was time to sleep, and she had been dozing, more or less, for over an hour.
But very slowly, she realized that no one was about. She was alone with the sleeping slaves, and she saw that the beautiful red-haired Prince was lying opposite her, his cheek against his hand, looking at her.
He was the one she had seen the night before kissing the soldier as he sat on the soldier's lap. He smiled now and with his right fingers blew a little kiss to Beauty.
"What did Mistress Lockley do to you this morning?" he whispered.
Beauty flushed.
He reached over and covered her hand with his. "It's all right," he whispered. "We love going to the Punishment Shop." He said. And he laughed under his breath.
"How long have you been here?" she asked. He was even more beautiful than Prince Roger. She had seen no slave at the castle who was any more aristocratic. The features of his face were strong like Tristan's features, but he had a smaller build and was more boyish.
"I was sent down from the castle a year ago. My name is Prince Richard. I was at the castle for six months until I was declared incorrigible."
"But why were you so bad?" Beauty asked. "Was it deliberate?"
"Not at all," he said. "I tried to obey, but I would panic and run into the corner. Or I simply could not perform a task for the shame and humiliation I felt. I couldn't command myself. I was passionate as you are passionate. Every paddle and cock and lovely lady's hand that touched me elicited some mortifying display of uncontrollable pleasure. But I couldn't obey. And so I was auctioned off for a full year to be tamed here."
"And now?" Beauty asked.
"I've come very far," he said. "I've been taught. And I owe it to Mistress Lockley. If it hadn't been for Mistress Lockley I don't know what would have happened to me. Mistress Lockley bound me, punished me, harnessed me, and took me through a dozen forced tasks before she expected anything of my will. Every other night I was paddled on the Public Turntable, made to run the circle of the Maypole. I was fastened in a tent in the Punishment Place and had to take all the cocks that came to me. I was teased and persecuted by the young women.
I spent the day usually dangling beneath the sign of the Inn. And I was bound hand and foot for the daily paddling. And only after a good four weeks of that was I unbound and ordered to light the fire and set the table. I tell you I covered her boots with kisses. I lapped the food literally from the palm of her hand."
Slowly Beauty nodded. She was surprised it had taken him so long.
"I worship her," he said. "I shudder to think what would have happened if I had been bought by someone softer."
"Yes," Beauty admitted, and the blood flooded to her face again. She felt it too in her sore buttocks.
"I never thought I could lie still on the bar for the morning paddling," he said. "I never thought I could be sent unbound through the streets to the Place of Punishment or that I would climb the steps and kneel on the Public Turntable without fetters. Or that I could be sent to the nearby Punishment Shop where we went this morning, but now I can do any of those things. Nor did I think I could pleasure the soldiers of the garrison without shrinking or showing panic when they pinioned me. But there is nothing I can't endure completely."
He paused. "You've already learned these things," he said. "I could tell it last night and today. Mistress Lockley loves you."
"She does!" Beauty felt a strong swimming desire in her loins. "O, you must be mistaken."
"No, I'm not. It's difficult for a slave to claim Mistress Lockley's attention. She rarely takes her eyes off you when you're about."
Beauty's heart began to race silently inside her.
"You know, I've something terrible to tell you," said the Prince.
"You don't have to tell me. I know," Beauty whispered. "Now that your year is up, you can't bear the thought of returning to the castle."
"Yes, precisely," he said. "Not because I can't obey and please. I'm quite sure of that. But it's... different."
"I know," Beauty said. But her head was teeming. So her cruel Mistress loved her, did she? And why did it give Beauty so much satisfaction? She'd never truly cared that Lady Juliana at the castle adored her. And this mean, proud little Innkeeper and the handsome, remote Captain of the Guard were touching her heart strangely.
"I need hard punishment," Prince Richard said, "I need direct commands, to know my place without hesitation. I don't welcome again those tender groomings and all that flattery. I'd rather be thrown over the Captain's horse and taken out to the camp and tethered to the hitching post there and used that way as I have been."
The image flashed brightly before Beauty. "Has the Captain of the Guard taken you?" she asked shyly.
"O, yes, of course," he said. "But never fear. I saw him last night. And he's quite in love with you, too, and when it comes to Princes, he likes them a little heartier than I, though now and then..." He smiled.
"And you have to go back to the castle?" Beauty asked.
"I don't know. Mistress Lockley is in great favor with the Queen because much of the Queen's garrison lodges here. And Mistress Lockley could keep me here, I think, if she paid for me. I earn much for the Inn. And any time I'm sent to the Punishment Shop the customers there pay for my penance. There are always people gathered there, having coffee, talki
ng, women sewing... watching the slaves spanked one by one. And though the Master and Mistress must pay for the service, the customers can add ten pence for another good licking if they desire it. I'm almost always licked three times there, and half that money goes to the shop and half to my Mistress. So I've earned back my price many many times by now and could earn it again if Mistress Lockley wants to keep me."
"O, I must be able to do it too!" Beauty whispered. "Maybe I have proved too obedient too soon!" Her mouth twisted in anguish.
"No, you haven't. What you must do is endear yourself to Mistress Lockley. And you don't do that with disobedience. You do it with a good show of submission. And when you go to the Punishment Shop – and you surely will, as she hasn't the time to paddle us properly every day – you must put up the best show you can, no matter how hard it is. And in some ways its harder than the Public Turntable."
"But why? I saw the turntable and it looked dreadful."
"The Punishment Shop is more intimate and less theatrical," the Prince explained. "The place is crowded, as I told you. Slaves are lined up on a low ramp along the left wall, each waiting as we waited this morning. Then there's the Master with his attendant on the little stage, hardly four feet off the floor, and the tables with the customers are right up against the ramp and the stage, and the customers are laughing and talking amongst themselves, ignoring most of what goes on, only commenting casually.
"But if they like a slave, they'll stop talking and watch. You can see them out of the corner of your eye with their elbows on the edge of the stage, and then the shouts of 'ten pence' and it starts again. The Master is a big rough man. You're thrown right over his knee. He wears a leather apron. He greases you hard before he begins and you're thankful for it. It makes the spanks sting more but it saves your skin, really. And the attendant props your chin and waits to drive you off.
