"O, don't think I should really let them have their fill of your charms. O, no," the Prince said thoughtfully.
"But I should you this opportunity, both to reward their devoted attention and teach you that punishment will come whenever I desire to give it. You need not be disobedient to merit it. I will punish when it pleases me. Sometimes that will be the only reason for it."
Beauty couldn't keep herself from whimpering.
The Prince smiled and beckoned to the Innkeeper's daughter. But she was so frightened of him that she didn't come forward until her father pushed her.
"My dear," said the Prince gently. "In the kitchen, have you a flat wooden instrument, for shoveling the hot pans into the oven?"
There was a faint movement throughout the room as the soldiers glanced at one another. The people outside were pressing closer to the windows. The young girl nodded and quickly returned with a wooden paddle, very flat and smooth from years of use, with a good handle.
"Excellent," said the Prince.
But Beauty was crying helplessly.
The Prince quickly ordered the Innkeeper's daughter to seat herself on the edge of the high hearth, which was the height of a chair, and told Beauty, on her hands and knees, to go to her.
"My dear," he said to the Innkeeper's daughter, "these good people deserve a little spectacle. There life is hard and barren. My men deserve it as well. And my Princess can well use the chastisement."
Beauty knelt crying before the girl who, seeing what she was to do, was fascinated.
"Up over her lap, Beauty," said the Prince, "hands behind your neck, and lift your lovely hair our of the way. At once!" he said, almost sharply.
Pricked by his voice, Beauty almost scurried to obey, and all those around her saw her tear-stained face.
"Keep your chin up like that, yes, lovely. Now, my dear," said the Prince looking at the girl who held Beauty over her lap and the wooden paddle in her other hand. "I want to see if you can wield that as hard as a man might wield it. Do you think you can do that?"
He could not keep from smiling at the girl's delight and desire to please. She nodded murmuring a respectful reply, and when he gave her the command, she brought the paddle down hard on Beauty's naked bu**ocks. Beauty couldn't keep still. She struggled to keep quiet, but she couldn't keep still, and finally even the whimpers and moans escaped her.
The tavern girl spanked her harder and harder, and the Prince enjoyed this, savoring it far more than the spanking he had given Beauty himself.
It was because he could see it much better, see Beauty's br**sts heaving, and the tears spilling down her face, and her little bu**ocks straining, as if, without moving, Beauty might somehow escape or deflect the girl's hard blows.
Finally, when the bu**ocks were very red but not welted, he told the girl to stop.
He could see his soldiers enthralled and all the townspeople as well, and then he snapped his fingers and told Beauty to come to him.
"Now eat your suppers, all of you, talk amongst yourselves, do as you like," he said quickly.
For a moment no one obeyed him. Then the soldiers turned to one another, and those outside, seeing that Beauty was retired down to kneeling at the Prince's feet, her hair veiling her red face, her raw and stinging bu**ocks pressed to her ankles, were murmuring and talking at the windows.
The Prince gave Beauty another drink of wine. He was not sure he was entirely satisfied with her. He was thinking of many things.
He called the Innkeeper's daughter to him and told her she had been very good, gave her a gold coin, and took the paddle from her.
Finally it was time to go up. And driving Beauty before him, he gave her a few gentle but brisk spanks to hurry her up the stairs to the bedchamber.
Chapter 4
BEAUTY
BEAUTY STOOD at the foot of the bed, her hands clasped to her neck, her bu**ocks throbbing with a warm pain that felt so much better now than the spanking she had lately received that it was almost pleasure.
She had for the moment stopped crying. She had only just pulled down the covers for the Prince, with her teeth, her hands clasped behind her back, and then with her teeth had taken his boots to the edge of the room.
And now she waited for further commands, trying to watch him, though her eyes were cast down, without his realizing it.
He had bolted the door, and he was sitting on the side of the bed.