Beauty s Punishment - By Anne Rice Page 0,88

eyes. We did not know what torments or rapture lay ahead of us.

Dmitri had turned and gone back into his slumbers. So had Laurent below.

And Beauty stretched again like a cat and lay down on the silken mattress.

The door opened and the young silk-clad attendants came in - six of them, one for each slave, it seemed - and they approached the cages, offering, as they unlocked the doors, a warm, aromatic drink, which surely contained another welcome sleeping potion.
VOLUPTUOUS CAPTIVITY
It was night when Beauty awoke. Turning on her belly she saw stars through a tiny grated window. The great craft creaked and hummed as it rode the waves.

But she was being gathered up, taken from the cage, her dreams not yet dissipated, and laid down upon a giant cushion again, this time atop a long table.

Candles blazed. She could smell the heavy perfume of incense. And from far away came a rich and vibrant music. The lovely young men surrounded her, rubbing the golden oil into her skin, smiling down at her as they worked, stretching her arms up and back, training her fingers to hold tight again to the edge of the cushion. And she saw a brush dipping down to color her nipples carefully with glittering gold pigment. She was too shocked to make a sound. She lay still as her lips were also painted. Then the soft hairs of the brush skillfully lined her eyes with the gold, stroking it onto her eyelashes. Great jeweled earrings were shown to her and, with a little gasp, she felt her earlobes stabbed, but her silent smiling captors hastened to shush and console her. The earrings dangled from the tiny burning wounds and the pain dissolved as she felt her legs drawn apart and a bowl of brightly colored, glistening fruits was held above her. The little armor of mesh was removed from her sex and tender fingers patted and stroked her until her sex awakened. Then she gazed into the same lovely olive-skinned face of the man who had first greeted her. Her attendant, he must be. And she saw that he was taking the fruit from the bowl - dates, pieces of melon and peach, tiny pears, dark red berries - and that he was carefully dipping each piece in a silver cup of honey.

Her legs were stretched wide apart and she realized the honeyed fruit was being placed inside of her. Her well-taught sex tightened irresistibly as the silky fingers forced the quartered melon deep within, and the next piece, and the next, bringing stronger and stronger flushes and sighs from her.

She couldn't keep from moaning, but this her captors seemed to approve. They nodded, their smiles growing ever brighter. She was filled with the fruit. She felt it bulging from her. And now she was shown the glistening bunch of ripe grapes that was laid between her legs. And a lovely sprig of white flowers was dangled over her face, and her mouth was opened and the sprig laid between her teeth, the waxy petals fluttering against her cheeks and chin every so slightly.

She tried not to bite down on the stem, merely to hold it firmly. Her underarms were being painted thickly with honey. And something, a plump date perhaps, was being pressed into her naval. Jeweled bracelets went about her wrists. She was being fitted with heavy anklets. She undulated almost irresistibly on the pillow as the tension mounted in her, the vague infatuation with the smiling faces. And she knew fear, too, as she felt herself slowly transformed into an astonishing ornament.

But she was left alone with the urgent caution to be very still and silent.

And she heard other quick preparations in the room, heard other soft sighs, and she could almost make out the tempo of a heart beating anxiously near her.

Finally her captors appeared again. She was lifted on the great thick cushion, like a treasure. The music grew louder as she was carried up the steps, the walls of her sex clamping against the enormous filling of fruit, the honey and the juices trickling out of her. The gold paint dried on her nipples, tightening the skin. On every inch of her flesh she felt some new stimulation.

Into a large chamber she was brought, the light soft and shimmering. The incense was intoxicating. The air pulsed with the rhythm of tambourines, the strumming of harps, the high metallic notes of other instruments. Over her head the draped cloth