again, and then told her to lay it on the floor at his feet.
He put food for her there from his plate, and told her to lift her heavy hair behind her shoulders and eat it only with her mouth.
"You are my kitten," he laughed gaily. "And I would forbid you all those tears if they weren't so beautiful. Do you want to please me?"
"Yes, my Prince," she said.
With his foot he pushed her plate several paces away and told her to turn her buttocks to him as she continued her meal. He admired it, realizing the red marks from her spanking had almost healed. With the toe of his leather boot, he nudged at the silken hair he could see between her legs, felt the moist plump lips beneath the hair, and sighed, thinking her so very beautiful.
When she had finished her meal, with her lips she pushed the plate back to his chair as he ordered her to do it, and then he wiped her lips himself and fed her some wine from his cup.
He watched her long beautiful throat as she swallowed, and kissed her eyelids.
"Now listen to me, I want you to learn from this," he said. "Everyone here can see you, all your charms, you're aware of it. But I want you to be very aware of it. Behind you, the townspeople at the windows are admiring you as they did when I brought you through the town. This should make you proud of yourself, not vain, but proud, proud that you have pleased me, and caught their admiration."
"Yes, my Prince," she said when he paused.
"Now think, you are very naked and very helpless, and you are mine completely."
"Yes, my Prince," she cried softly.
"That is your life now, and you are to think of nothing else, and regret nothing else. I want that dignity peeled away from you as if it were so many skins of the onion. I don't mean that you should ever be graceless. I mean that you should surrender to me."
"Yes, my Prince," she said.
The Prince looked up at the Innkeeper who stood at the kitchen door with his wife and his daughter. They came to attention at once. But the Prince looked only at the daughter. She was a young woman, very pretty in her own way, though nothing compared to Beauty. She had black hair and round cheeks, and a very tiny waist, and she dressed as many peasant women did, in a low-cut ruffled shirtwaist, and a short broad skirt that revealed her smart little ankles. She had an innocent face. She was watching Beauty in wonder, her big brown eyes moving anxiously to the Prince and then shyly back to Beauty who knelt at the Prince's feet in the firelight.
"Now, as I told you," the Prince said softly to Beauty, "all here admire you, and they enjoy you, the sight of you, your plump little rear, your lovely legs, those breasts which I cannot stop myself from kissing. But there is no one here, not the lowliest, who is not better than you, my Princess, if I command you to serve him."
Beauty was frightened. She nodded quickly as she answered "Yes, my Prince," and then very impulsively she bent and kissed the Prince's boot, but then she appeared terrified.
"No, that is very good, my darling," the Prince stroking her neck, reassured her. "That is very good. If I allow you one gesture to speak your heart unbidden it is that one. You may always show me respect of your own accord in that manner."
Again Beauty pressed her lips to the leather. But she was trembling.
"These townspeople hunger for you, hunger for more of your loveliness," the Prince continued. "And I think they deserve a little taste of it that will delight them."
Beauty kissed the Prince's boot again, and let her lips rest there.
"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