Beauty's Release

by Ann Rice

  But even more interesting was the sight of Lexius, standing back under the fig tree, watching. Our eyes met for one split second before I was roughly turned around again.

  I almost smiled, but it would have been foolish to do so. My reddened buttocks were really delighting these new Masters. They had all to squeeze them, feel the heat, see me wince. I wondered why they didn't whip all the other slaves, too. But no sooner had that little thought come to my head than I heard the straps at work on the others.

  The Lord with the sunburnt face pushed me down on my knees and with both his hands kneaded my punished flesh, while another man caught my arms and wound them around his hips. He opened his robe. The cock was ready for my mouth, and I took it, thinking of Lexius when I did so. And in back of me a cock pushed at my buttocks, patted them, and entered.

  I felt speared at both ends, and all the more excited by the thought that Lexius witnessed it. And I worked my lips hard on the delicious cock in my mouth, falling into rhythm with the one that was driving into me. The cock pushed deeper into my mouth, deeper into my throat, and the man behind me spanked against my aching backside with each thrust, until finally he spurted into me. I locked my arms tighter around the man I suckled. I nursed him harder and harder, while again my buttocks were pulled apart, kneaded and pinched, and another, bigger cock slipped into me.

  At last, I felt the hot salty fluid fill my mouth, and the cock, after a last few licks of my tongue, withdrew through my tight wet tips, as if savoring the motion as much as I did. At once, another took its place as the man in back continued to grind his hips against me.

  It seems I took another in front and in back before I was stood upright again and thrown back, my shoulders caught by two men who pushed my head down so that I could see nothing but their robes, my legs spread apart by another man who entered me immediately. My body was rocked by his thrusts, my own cock pumping vainly. A cool mass of cloth suddenly veiled my chest. Another man had straddled me. My head was lifted and cradled to receive his cock. I tried to free my arms to hold to his hips, but those who held me wouldn't allow it.

  I was still sucking the cock, greedily, hungrily, my own hunger critical and painful now, when the man who had been raping me withdrew, quite satisfied I think, and I felt the strap licking at my buttocks as the men held my legs apart and up. I was whipped hard, the old welts blazing again, until I was moaning and twisting as I sucked the cock and I could hear laughter around me. I cried bitterly as the pain grew worse. The hands that held my legs tightened. And I clung to the cock, working it feverishly until it came, and then letting the fluid fill my mouth before I slowly, deliberately swallowed it.

  I was turned over again, and I glimpsed the grass beneath me, the sandals of those who held me suspended. My buttocks were steaming from the strap. And, as a new cock entered my mouth and another entered my anus, I was whipped from the side, the strap curling over the same punished flesh, and then licking at my back and underneath, at my cock and my nipples. I went into a frenzy as the leather licked my cock again. I pumped my backside against the man who raped me, and drew the other cock into me deeply.

  I had no real thoughts now. I had no dreams of other moments or even of Lexius. I was simmering with just the proper mixture of pain and excitement, hoping desperately that my Lords and Masters might at some point want to see my cock perform.

  But what need did they have for that?

  When they were at last satisfied, I was allowed down on all fours and sent to remain motionless in the center of the nearby carpet. I might as well have been an animal for which they had no more need. And the Lords settled back. into their circle. They sat crossed-logged on their cushions and lifted their goblets again – ate, drank, murmured to one another.

  I knelt there with my head low, as I had been taught, trying not to see them surrounding me. I wanted to look for Lexius, see that familiar figure again in the trees, know he was watching. But all I could see were the dark shadows surrounding me. I saw the glint of splendid robes, the sharp gleam of the men's eyes, heard the rise and fall of voices.

  I was panting, and my cock was humiliatingly alive, moving without my will. But what was that in the Sultan's garden? Now and then one of the men reached out and slapped my cock, or pulled at my nipples. A mercy and a penance. A little laughter from the group, some observation. The situation was unbearably subdued and intimate. I tensed, unable to shield myself. And when my welts were pinched I cried softly, keeping my mouth closed.

  The garden was quieter now. But there still came the sound of punishing straps and hoarse, triumphant cries of pleasure.

  Finally, two of the grooms appeared with another slave and they took me by the hair, and pulled me out of the circle as they pushed the new slave into it. They snapped their fingers for me to follow them.

  LAURENT: THE GREAT ROYAL PRESENCE

  I MOVED AFTER them across the grass, glad for the moment to be out of the glare of attention. Yet it was enervating, the manner in which they whispered to each another and only occasionally coaxed me on with a pat on the head or a tug of my hair.

  The garden itself was full of those who still feasted, and panting slaves on display as I had been. Some I saw were still on the crosses or had been put back, and many twisted and struggled violently.

  I didn't see Lexius.

  But we soon came to a brightly lighted room opening off the garden. There were grooms busy with hundreds of slaves. Scattered tables were covered with manacles, straps, caskets of jewels, and other playthings.

  I was made to stand up, and a good-sized bronze phallus was obviously chosen for me and I stood numbly watching as it was oiled, marveling at the detailed carving of the thing, the way the circumcised tip and even the surface of the skin was beautifully realized. it had a round loop of metal, a hook, on the wide, round base end of it.

  The grooms never even glanced up as they worked. They expected quiet and total compliance. They inserted the phallus, pushing it well up into me, and then put long leather cuffs on my arms and brought my arms back, forcing me to thrust out my chest, and they bound these bracelets tight to the hook on the base of the phallus.

  My arms are rather long even for a man of my height and, had they bound my wrists, it would have been more comfortable. But the bracelet was above my wrists, and so my shoulders were held well back and my head up, when this was finished.

  I could see other moist, well-muscled slaves in the room being manacled in the same fashion. In face, there were only big, powerfully built slaves here, none of the smaller, more delicate ones. And the cocks were large, too. And some of the slaves had been soundly thrashed. They had very red backsides.

  I tried to yield to this position, to accept the way it forced my chest out, but it was hard for me. The metal phallus felt amazingly hard and punishing, not at all like something made of wood and covered with leather. Next, a large stiff collar was buckled to my neck, one that had several long, narrow, delicate straps dangling from it. It was loose but very strong and rigid, and it forced my chin up high as it rested firmly on my shoulders. Immediately, the long strap that hung down in back – I could feel this – was buckled tight to the phallus hook. Two more straps running from a single hook on the front of the collar were drawn down over my chest and under me, past my organs on either side, and they too were buckled tight to the phallus.

  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 stu
dy 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.