Beauty s Punishment - By Anne Rice Page 0,40

hard. The blue eyes narrowed very slowly, their dark centers seeming to expand, as the right hand was raised, the first finger wagging back and forth stiffly, the lips forming the word "no" silently. The breath went out of me. The eyes grew still and stone-cold and the left hand let me go. I turned back in line of my own accord, clamping my hands to the back of my neck, again shuddering and swallowing as the crowd gave exaggerated "ooooh's" and "awwww's" of mock sympathy.

"That's a good boy," shouted a man in my ear, "you don't want to disappoint this crowd, now, do you?" I felt his boot touch my buttocks. "I'm betting ten pence he puts on the best show tonight."

"And who's to judge that?" said another.

"Ten pence he really moves that bottom!"

It seemed an eternity before I saw the next slave go up, and then the next and the next, and finally I was the last one struggling forward in the dust, the sweat pouring down me in rivulets, my knees burning and my head swimming. Even in this moment I believed somehow I had to be rescued. My Master had to be merciful, change his mind, realize I'd done nothing to deserve it. It had to happen because I could not endure it.

The crowd shifted and pressed in. Loud cries rose as the Princess being paddled above squealed and I heard the thunder of her feet on the turntable. I felt the sudden impulse to rise and run, but I did not move, and the noise in the square seemed pumped to greater and greater volume by a roll of drums again. The paddling was over and I was next. Two attendants were rushing me up the steps while with my whole soul I rebelled, and I heard my Master's firm command, "No fetters."

No fetters. So there had been that choice. I almost broke into a wild struggle. O, please for the mercy of fetters. But to my horror I was of my own accord stretching out to place my chin on the high wooden post and spreading my knees, and clasping my hands on my back with the rough hands of the attendants merely guiding me.

Then I was alone. No hands touched me. My knees rested in only the shallowest indentations in the wood. Nothing but the slender post of the chin rest came between me and thousands of pairs of eyes, my chest and belly tightening in rolling spasms.

The turntable was cranked around fast and I saw the huge figure of the shaggy-haired Whipping Master, sleeves rolled above his elbows, the giant paddle in his mammoth right hand as with the left he scooped up from a wooden bucket a great dripping dollop of honey-colored cream. "Ah, let me guess!" he shouted. "It's a fresh little boy from the castle who's never been paddled here before! Soft and pink as a piglet for all his golden hair and sturdy legs. Now are you going to give these good people a fine show, young man?" He spun the turntable again half around and slapped the thick cream to my buttocks, working it in well as the crowd reminded him in loud shouts that he would need plenty. The drums gave their chilling deep-throated roll. I saw the whole square spread out before me, hundreds of eager gaping villagers. And the poor unfortunates circling the Maypole, the pilloried slaves struggling as they were pinched and prodded, slaves hung upside down from an iron carrousel being cranked slowly around just as I was being moved now in a relentless circle.

My buttocks warmed and then seemed to simmer and cook under the thick massaging of cream. I could almost feel it glistening. And I knelt freely, unfettered! My eyes were so dazzled by the torches suddenly that I blinked. "You heard me, young man," came the Whipping Master's booming voice again, and I was back facing him and he was wiping his hand dry on his stained apron. He reached out now and cradled my chin, pinching my cheeks as he wagged my head back and forth. "Now you will give these people a good show!" he said loudly. "You hear me, young man? And do you know why you'll give them a good show? Because I'll thrash your pretty buttocks until you do it!" And the crowd squealed in derisive laughter. "You're going to move that handsome rump, young slave, if you've never moved it before. This