Beauty s Punishment - By Anne Rice Page 0,41

is the Public Turntable!" And with a sharp slap of the foot pedal, he gave the turntable another whirl, the long rectangular paddle spanking both my buttocks with a shattering crack, driving me frantically to struggle for balance.

The crowd gave a genial roar as I was whirled around again and the second blow came and then the whirl and another and then another. I clenched my teeth on my cries, the warm pain radiating out from my buttocks through my cock. I heard taunts of "Harder." "Really thrash the slave," and "Work that rump." "Pump that cock." And I realized I was obeying these commands, not deliberately but helplessly, wriggling as I was sent into frantic upheaval by each deafening smack, trying not to slip out of place on the turntable.

I tried to close my eyes, but they opened wide with each blow, and my mouth was wide, my cries erupting uncontrollably. The paddle spanked me to one side and the other, almost toppling me and then righting me, and yet I felt my starved cock jerking forward at each blow, throbbing with desire at each blow, and the pain flashed in my head like a fire exploding.

The myriad tints and shapes of the square were mired together. My body, caught in the whirl of spanking blows, seemed to fly loose from itself. I could no longer struggle for balance, yet the paddle would not let me slide or fall; there had never been any such danger. And I was caught in the speed of the turns, riding the heat and force of the paddle, crying aloud in short wrenching bursts, the crowd clapping and shouting and chanting.

All the images of the day fused in my brain, Jerard's strange speech, the Mistress thrusting the phallus between my spread buttocks - and yet I thought of nothing clearly except the slamming of the paddle and the laughing crowd that seemed to flow out from the turntable forever. "Snap those hips!" cried the Whipping Master, and without thought or will, I obeyed, overcome by the force of the command, by the force of the will of the crowd, snapping wildly and hearing hoarse raucous cheers, the paddle slapping first the left and then the right side of my buttocks and then thundering on my calves and rising to my thighs and my buttocks again.

I was lost as I had never been lost. The shouts and jeers washed me as surely as the light washed me and the pain washed me. I was only my burning welts and swelling flesh and the hard rod of a cock jerking vainly as the multitude screamed, the paddle smacking again and again, my own cries vying with it in volume. Nothing in the castle had so drenched my soul. Nothing had so seared me and emptied me.

I was plunged into the depth of the village, abandoned there. And it was luxurious suddenly, horribly luxurious, that so many should witness this delirium of abasement. If I must lose my pride, my will, my soul, let them revel in it. And it was natural too that hundreds milling in the square should not even notice it.

Yes, I was this thing now, this nude and bulging mass of genitals and sore muscles, the pony who pulled the coach, the sweating, crying object of public ridicule. And they could take pleasure in it or ignore it as they wanted.

The Whipping Master stepped back. He whirled the turntable round and round. My buttocks boiled. My open mouth shuddered, cries choking loose as loudly as ever.

"Get those hands down between your legs and cover your balls!" roared the Whipping Master. And mindlessly, in a last gesture of debasement, I obeyed, hunching, my chin still well propped, to shield my balls as the crowd stamped and laughed all the harder. Suddenly I saw a shower of objects sailing through the air. I was being pelted with half-eaten apples, crusts of bread, the soft crush of raw eggs as the shells exploded against my buttocks and back and shoulders. I felt sharp stings on my cheeks, the soles of my naked feet, my eyes wide as the hail continued. Even my penis was struck, which brought sharp shrieks of laughter.

Now a rain of coins commenced to hit the boards. The Whipping Master shouted "More, you know it was good. More! Buy out the slave's whipping and the Master will bring him back all the sooner!" And I saw a youth rushing around me in