Beauty s Punishment - By Anne Rice Page 0,59

wouldn't have to take the fourth, it was too much, I was sobbing, and there was a good long line of slaves waiting. But that hand came up with the grease again to rub my welts and scrapes and slap my cock, and I was riding that knee again, putting on an even better show than the ones before it. And the sack of money isn't put into your mouth to bring home as at the Public Turntable. It's shoved good and proper in your anus with the little drawstrings hanging out. And that night I was forced through the whole tavern afterwards, to every table for extra copper coins, and they pushed those into me until I was stuffed as well as a fowl for roasting. Mistress Lockley was delighted with the money I'd earned. But my buttocks were so sore that when she touched them with her fingers I cried frantically. I thought she'd have mercy on me, at least on my cock, but not Mistress Lockley. She gave me to the soldiers that night as always. I had to sit on many a rough lap with those sore buttocks, and my cock was stroked and tormented and slapped I don't know how many times before I was finally allowed to plunge it into a hot little Princess. Even then I was being whipped with a belt to drive me on. And when I came the blows didn't stop, they just went right on. The Mistress said I had very resilient skin, that many slaves couldn't have taken it. After that she saw I got as much as I could take, just as she told me she would."

Beauty was too stunned to say anything. "And I will be sent there," she finally murmured.

"O, surely. At least twice a week we're packed off, all of us. It's only a little ways up the lane, and we're sent on our own, and for some reason, that always seems a terrible part of the punishment. But don't be afraid when the time comes.

Just remember, if you come back with that little bag of coins in your buttocks, you'll make the Mistress very happy."

Beauty laid her cheek against the cool grass. "I don't ever want to go back to the castle," she thought. "I don't care how hard it is here, how frightening!" She looked at Prince Richard. "Have you ever thought of running away?" she asked. "I wonder if the Princes don't think of that."

"No," he laughed. "And it was a Princess who ran away last night, by the way. And I'll tell you a secret. They haven't found her. They don't want anyone to know either. Go back to sleep now. The Captain will be in a terrible frame of mind tonight if they haven't captured her by that time. You don't think of running away, do you?"

"No," Beauty shook her head.

He turned to the Inn door. "I think I hear them coming. Go on back to sleep if you can. We have another hour or so."
PUBLIC TENTS
Tristan:

In the early evening, I was a pony again, safe in my harnesses, thinking almost sardonically of my trepidation the night before when the tail and the bit had seen such unthinkable humiliations. We reached the manor house before dark, and I was singled out to be made a footstool for my master for hours beneath the dining table.

The conversation was long. Others were there, rich merchants and farmers of the town, talking of crops and weather and the price of the slaves, and the undeniable fact that the village needed more slaves, not just the fine, often temperamental little lovelies from the castle, but solid lesser Tributes who need not ever see the Queen, the sons and daughters of petty nobles under her protection. Such slaves did come from time to time, right to auction in the marketplace. Why couldn't there be more?

My Master was fairly quiet all the time. I started living and breathing for the sound of his voice.

But he laughed at this last suggestion and asked dryly, "And who would like to demand that of her Majesty?"

I listened to every word, gleaning, not so much knowledge I did not possess before, but an increased sense of my lowliness. They told little stories about bad slaves, punishments, common events they thought humorous. And it was as if none of the slaves serving the table or those used as footstools like myself had ears or sense, or need be given the