Beauty's Release

by Ann Rice

  Beauty felt such horror that for a moment she could do nothing to conceal her feelings but stare at this dreadful evidence in front of her. But then she swallowed her revulsion for the act itself, and looked at the enticing creature before her. And then impulsively she kissed Inanna's trembling breasts again, and she kissed her mouth, not letting Inanna shy away. And she licked at the tears that spilled over Inanna's cheeks, locking her in a long kiss that finally subjugated her.

  "Yes, yes, darling," Beauty said. "Yes, my precious one." And when Inanna had calmed somewhat, Beauty looked at the mutilated sex again and studied it more completely. The little kernel of pleasure excised, yes. And the lips too. And nothing left but the portal that the man might enjoy. The filthy, selfish beast, the animal.

  Inanna was watching her. Beauty sat back and lifted her hands to ask a question in gestures. She indicated herself, her hair, her body, to mean "women," then made sweeping gestures all around to mean "all women here" and pointed to the scarred sex inquiringly.

  Inanna nodded. She confirmed it with another sweeping gesture of her own: "Yes," she said in Beauty's own tongue, "All ... all...."

  "All women here?"

  "Yes," Inanna answered.

  Beauty was silent. She knew now why the women of the harem had found her such a curiosity, why they had delighted in her feeling. And her hatred of the Sultan and of all the Lords of the palace became something dark and full of anguish.

  Inanna wiped at her tears with the back of her hand. She was staring at Beauty's sex, and her face had lapsed into quiet, childish curiosity.

  "But something strange is happening here," Beauty murmured. "This woman does feel! She is as hot as I am hot." She touched her lips as she thought of the kisses. "It was desire that impelled her to come to me, free me from the bindings, bring me here. But has this desire never been consummated?" She looked at Inanna's breasts, at her exquisitely rounded arms, and her long curling brown hair that hung down over her shoulders.

  "No, surely she can be made to feel it to the pinnacle," Beauty thought. "It is more than these external parts. It must be." And she gathered Inanna into her arms and again forced her mouth open with kisses.

  At first Inanna was puzzled, and with her little moans she questioned Beauty. But Beauty squeezed her breasts as she put her tongue between Inanna's lips. She brought the passion up slowly until Inanna's heart was again pounding. Inanna pressed her legs together, then knelt up as Beauty knelt up, and once again their bodies were wedded, mouths locked, all Beauty's flesh awakened by Inanna's flesh, her pubis electrified as she danced against Inanna. Beauty fed upon the breasts again, greedily and hard, holding tight to Inanna's arms and not letting her go even when the feeling made her frantic.

  Finally, Beauty felt Inanna was ready, and roughly she pushed her back on the pillows and parted her legs, and spread apart the little sex that had been so butchered. The vital wetness was there, the delicious smoky-tasting fluids that Beauty could lap with her tongue as Inanna's hips rose in snapping spasms. "Yes, darling," Beauty thought, and her tongue drove deep into the sex, licking at the top of the vagina until Inanna's cries became hoarse and unmodulated. "Yes, yes, darling," she thought, and she closed her mouth on the stunted lips, her tongue seeking the deeper, tougher muscles of the little cavity and pumping against them furiously.

  Inanna turned and struggled under her. Her hands pushed at Beauty's hair but not with enough will to dislodge Beauty's head, and Beauty, intent upon her task, forced Inanna's thighs up and tilted her sex back and sucked at it even more savagely. "Yes, come, feel it, my little one," she thought, "feel it deeply inside," and she buried her face in the wet swollen flesh, digging faster and deeper with her tongue, her teeth scraping at the tiny pad of scar tissue where the clitoris had been until Inanna lifted her hips with all her strength and cried out, the whole little mouth convulsing violently. Beauty had done it. She had triumphed. And she sucked the throbbing flesh harder and harder until Inanna's cries went almost into a scream and the woman pulled away and buried her face in the pillow, her whole body shaking.

  Beauty sat up. She rested back on her hips again, her own sex ripe, and full of pulse like a heart. Inanna lay still, her face still hidden, and then she sat up slowly, looking stunned and witless, and she stared at Beauty. She threw her arms around Beauty's neck, and she kissed Beauty all over her face and neck and shoulders.

  Beauty accepted all this. Then she lay back on the pillows and she let Inanna lie next to her. She moved her hand between Inanna's legs, and she put her fingers into the sex.

  "Well, this one is stronger than the others," she thought. "And there has been no one to satisfy her."

  And only then, as she snuggled with Inanna, did she realize that they might both be in danger. It must be forbidden for the wives to do this, forbidden for the wives to be naked except for and with the Sultan.

  And Beauty felt a profound hatred for the Sultan and a sudden desire to leave this realm and return to the land of the Queen. But she tried to put this out of her mind, to enjoy the pure excitement of lying next to Inanna, and she began to kiss her breasts again.

  In fact, it seemed to her that Inanna's breasts were the most delectable part of her, and she began to knead them as she nibbled at the nipples. A new sense of abandon came over her. She wasn't trying to please Inanna now so much as she was lost in her own desires, her mouth pulling on the nipple, her mind only dimly aware of Inanna once more moving under her.

  She parted her legs over Inanna's thigh and pushed her sex against the smooth skin, her burning clitoris throbbing. Suckling Inanna's breast, she rode the thigh, up and down, her body stiffening, her legs hugging Inanna, until suddenly the orgasms flooded her.

  When it was over, it did not leave her in peace. She felt herself in the grip of a fever. The lushness of Inanna's body and the softness of her own created some new sense of limitless ecstasy, some vague and mad dream of a night of unfolding pleasures, desire building upon desire.

  She sucked on Inanna's tongue, the sweetness intoxicating her and carrying her up and out of her drowsiness. And, remembering dimly the spectacle of Lexius impaling Laurent on his gloved fist, she made her hand into a tight knot and moved it through the charred mouth between Inanna's legs.

  Wet as before, tight, deliciously tight, the opening gripped her fist and the part of her wrist that also entered, and the muscles pulsed against her hungrily, further exciting her. And when she felt Inanna's clenched hand enter her, she knew again the old pleasure of being filled, her body embracing all these sensations with increasing urgency. She worked Inanna with her fist as Inanna worked her, Inanna's arm pumping with almost punishing roughness.

  When they came it was together, moaning into each other, their bodies drenched in warmth and unbroken tremors of pure ecstasy.

  Finally, Beauty lay back on the pillow and rested, her arm still wound around Inanna's arm, her fingers playing with Inanna's fingers. She did not open her eyes when Inanna sat up. She was only dimly conscious of Inanna examining her again, Inanna taking her time as she touched Beauty's breasts and pubic lips, then embracing Beauty and rocking her in her arms as if Beauty were something precious she must never lose: the key to her new and secret realm. She wept again, her tears flowing onto Beauty's face, but the weeping was soft and full of unmistakable relief and happiness.

  LAURENT: THE GARDEN OF MALE DELIGHTS

  IT SEEMED a long time passed. I knelt in silence, my head bowed, my hands spread on my thighs, my cock rising again. The light in the small room had darkened. Late afternoon. Lexius, looking quite composed in his robes, merely stood watching me. Whether it was anger that fixed him there, or bewilderment I couldn't be certain.

  But, when he finally came striding across the room, I felt the force of his will, his ability once again to command both of us.

  He put the cock strap around my cock and yanked hard on the leash as he opened the door. In seconds, I was crawling after him. The blood was racing to my head.
/>   And when I saw the garden through the open doors, I felt the faint hope that maybe I wasn't to be specially punished. It was getting dusk already, and the torches on the walls were just being lighted. The lamps hung in the trees gave off their illumination. And the exquisitely bound slaves, their torsos oiled and gleaming, their heads bowed as before, looked as tantalizing as I had thought they would.

  There was one change in the picture, however. All the slaves had been blindfolded. Their eyes were masked by gold leather. And I realized that they were struggling in their bonds, moaning softly – moving with more abandon than they had before, as if the blindfolds released them to do so.

  Seldom had I been blindfolded. I didn't know what I thought of it – whether it would be good or bad, whether it would make me more or less fearful.

  There were more servants at work in the garden. Bowls of fruit were being set down. I could smell the red wine in the open decanters.

  A small group of grooms appeared. The Master, whose face I had not glimpsed since I had kissed him, snapped his fingers, and we proceeded to the center of the grove of fig trees, the place where we had been before, and I saw Dmitri and Tristan, bound on their crosses as we had left them. Tristan looked particularly handsome with the blindfold, his golden hair falling down over it.

  A carpet had been spread out right before them. There was the small wine table with its circle of goblets, the scattered cushions. The barren cross was to Tristan's right, directly before the fig tree. The blood thundered in my head when I saw it.

  The Master at once gave a series of orders. But his voice was soft. There was no anger in it. I was picked up, turned upside down, and taken to the cross. And immediately, I felt my ankles being tethered to the ends of the crossbar, my head dangling just above the ground, my cock bumping the smooth wood.

  I saw the upside-down garden spread before me, servants mere blurs of color moving through the greenery.

  As soon as I was secure, my arms were lifted up away from the ground and my wrists tied to the brass hooks that held the thighs of the other slaves. And then I felt my cock being bent back and straight up above my inverted body, and it was tied in place between my legs by leather thongs that went round my thighs, holding it firmly. It did not hurt in this unnaturally bent position. But it was on display, and it could touch nothing.

  All the bonds were made doubly secure, leather thongs pulled tight, and then one more good loop of leather was bound round my chest and the cross, to steady me and render me completely immobile.

  In sum, I was upside down, bound firmly with legs apart and arms apart and my cock pointing upwards. The blood was roaring in my ears, and thudding in my cock.

  I felt the blindfold going round my face – it was furlined and very cool – and buckled tight on the back of my head. Pure blackness. And all of the noises of the garden suddenly magnified.

  Footsteps in the grass. Then the heightened feel of hands rubbing oil into my backside; massaging it well and deep between my legs. The distant sounds of pots and pans, the smell of cooking fires.

  I tried to move. I felt an irresistible urge to test the bonds. I struggled. It produced no effect, except that I realized it had been easier because I was blindfolded. Unable to gauge the visual effect, I let myself tremble all over, and feel the cross vibrate slightly under me, as the Punishment Cress had done in the village.

  But there was a terrible ignominy to being upside dawn, a terrible ignominy to the blindfold.

  Then I felt the first lash of the strap across my bottom. It came again very quickly, and then again, with a loud cracking noise, more leather than flesh being smacked, and then again, stinging this time remarkably. I felt myself wriggling all over. I felt grateful that it was happening at last, yet afraid of what I would feel moments from now. And it was bitter to me that I didn't know whether or not Lexius was doing the whipping. Was it he or one of those little grooms?

  Whatever the case, it was good, the whipping. It was the thick leather strap that I had craved ever since we left the village, the sound, punishing strap that I needed. It was the beating I had dreamed of every time those delicate thongs teased my cock or the soles of my feet. And the walloping was splendid, coming fast as it did. And with a rush of sublime relief, I lost all resistance.

  Even on the village Punishment Cross I had not been so totally given over. That had come only with the increase of pain. Now, as I hung blindfolded and helpless, it happened instantly. My cock was thumping and moving under its tight binding, and the strap was lashing me hard across both buttocks at the same time, and coming so fast that there seemed little or no interval between blows, just unbroken punishment with a sound that seemed nearly deafening to me.

  I wondered what the other slaves thought as they heard it – whether they craved it as I might have, or feared it. Whether they knew it was a disgrace to be whipped like this, the sound disrupting the peace and the quiet of the garden.

  But the thrashing was going on. The strap was being swung harder and harder. And when a cry broke from me, I realized for the first time that I wasn't gagged. I was bound and blindfolded but not gagged.

  Well, that little oversight was immediately remedied. A roll of soft leather was shoved well between my teeth, as the blows from the strap continued. And the gag was pulled well back into my mouth by ties that were then knotted behind my head, holding the gag firmly.

  I don't know why it so thoroughly undid me. It was perhaps the last restraint needed, and under all these restraints I went wild, bucking and struggling under the pounding strap and crying aloud against the gag as I hung in darkness. The inside of the soft fur-lined blindfold was moist and hot with my tears. And my cries were muffled, but loud. And I began to struggle in rhythmic motions. I could raise my entire body a few inches, then drop down. And I realized I was rising to reach the blazing hot wallops of the strap, and then dropping away from them and coming up again.

  "Yes," I thought, "do it. Do it harder. Whip me soundly for what I've done. Let the blaze of pain grow brighter, hotter." But it was not this coherent, what I thought. It was like a song in my head, made up of the rhythms – the strap, my cries, the creak of the wood.

  And at some point as it continued, I realized it was going on longer than any beating I'd ever received before. The blows weren't all that hard now. But I was so sore it scarcely mattered. Nice, lazy loud smacks from the strap had me writhing and crying.

  And the garden was filling with voices. Men's voices. I could hear them coming in, laughing, talking. I could even hear, if I listened very carefully, the wine being poured into the goblets. I could smell it again. And smell the green grass right under my head, and smell the fruit, and the strong aroma of roasted meat and sweet aromatic spices. Cinnamon and fowl, cardamom, beef.

  So the banquet was in progress. And the beating still went on, but the blows were coming more and more slowly.

  Music had commenced. I heard the thumping of strings, the beat of small drums, and then the ring of harps and shrill, unfamiliar sounds from horns I couldn't name. It was dissonant and foreign and delightfully strange, the music.

  My rump was burning with pain. And the strap played with it. There would be a long moment in which I would feel every inch on my backside glowing, and then the crack of the strap, the white-hot flair, for an instant. I wept. I realized it might go on like that all the evening long. And there was nothing I could do but cry helplessly.

  "But better this," I thought, "than to be one of the others. Better this, to draw their eyes to it as they dine and drink and laugh together, whoever they are ... than to be a mere decoration. Yes, the disgraced one again, the punished one. The one with the will."

  And I struggled violently on the cross, loving the strength of it, that I couldn't bring it down, and feeling the strap come down harder and faster again, my cries growing louder and more miserable.

  Finally, the blows slacked off again. They became teasing. The strap was playing with various little marks, welts, scrapes t
hat it had made in my flesh. I knew this little piece of music.

  And it blended with the other music, the music of those who held power, which flooded my senses. Mentally I reached out from the moment, exquisite as it was, and gathered other moments to me, welding the immediate past to the dizzying present. The feel of Lexius's lips – why hadn't I called him Lexius, made him call me Master? I would next time – the feel of his tight little anus when I'd raped him. I savored all this as the strap lazily revived my simmering flesh, and the banquet went on noisily.

  I didn't know how much time had passed. I only knew, as I had in the hold of the ship, that something had changed. The men were rising, moving about. The strap was startling me now. I'd be left in peace, then it would lick at me. I was so sore that the scratch of a fingernail would have made me moan. I felt the blood teeming under the welts, and my cock dancing in its leather bindings. The voices in the garden were getting louder, more drunken, more abandoned.

  Cloth brushed my back, my head, as men passed me. Then suddenly my head was lifted, and the blindfold was pulled off, and I felt the bonds being loosened from my ankles and wrists and my chest simultaneously. I tensed all over, afraid of falling, of being dropped.

  But the grooms quickly had me right side up, and I found myself standing in the grass, a desert Lord before me. Naturally, I hadn't the common sense or self-discipline not to look at him. He wore a full Arab headdress of white linen, and dark wine-colored robes, and his eyes glittered from a dark sunbaked face as he smiled at me. My stunned look seemed only to amuse him. But other such Lords pressed in. I was suddenly turned roughly. And a powerful hand squeezed my sore buttocks. There was laughter. My cock was slapped, my chin lifted, my face examined.

  And all around me I could see slaves were being taken down. Dmitri, still blindfolded, was on all fours on the grass, being well raped by a young Lord. And Tristan knelt before another Master, taking the man's cock into his mouth with vigorous motions.