Beauty's Release - By A. N. Roquelaure & Anne Rice Page 0,19

Beauty turned to watch, utterly forgetting herself.

“That you will not do, Princess,” he said, and at once he slapped her hard and she bowed her head, her face stinging. “You will continue to look at me until I tell you otherwise.”

Beauty’s tears rose at once. How could she have been so foolish?

But there was no anger in his voice, only a soft indulgence. Tenderly, he lifted her chin. She stared at him through her tears.

“Do you know what I want of you, Beauty? Answer me.”

“No, Master,” she said quickly. Her voice alien to her.

“That you be perfect, for me!” he said gently, the voice seeming so full of reason, of logic. “This I want of all of you. That you be nonpareils in this vast wilderness of slaves in which you could be lost like a handful of diamonds in the ocean. That you shine by virtue not merely of your compliance but by virtue of your intense and particular passion. You will lift yourself up from the masses of slaves who surround you. You will seduce your Masters and Mistresses by a lustre that throws others into eclipse! Do you understand me!”

Beauty struggled not to sob in her anxiousness, her eyes on his, as if she could not look away even if she wanted to. But never had she felt such an overwhelming desire to obey. The urgency of his voice was wholly dif ferent from the tone of those who had educated her at the castle or chastised her in the village. She felt as if she was losing the very form of her personality. She was slowly melting.

“And this you will do for me,” he said, his voice growing even more soft, more persuasive, more resonant. “You will do it as much for me as for your royal Lords. Because I desire it of you.” He closed his hand around Beauty’s throat. “Let me hear you speak again, little one. In my chambers, you will speak to me to tell me that you wish to please me.”

“Yes, Master,” she said. And her voice once again seemed strange to her, full of feelings she hadn’t truly known before. The warm fingers caressed her throat, seemed to caress the words she spoke, coax them out of her and shape the tone of them.

“You see, there are hundreds of grooms,” he said, narrowing his eyes as he looked away from her to the others, the hand still clasping her. “Hundreds charged with preparing succulent little partridges for Our Lord the Sultan, or fine muscular young bucks and stags for him to play with. But I, Lexius, am the only Chief Steward of the Grooms. And I must choose and present the finest of all playthings.”

Even this was not said with anger or urgency.

But as he looked again at Beauty, his eyes widened with intensity. The semblance of anger terrified her. But the gentle fingers massaged the back of her neck, the thumb stroking her throat in front.

“Yes, Master,” she whispered suddenly.

“Yes, absolutely, my little love,” he said, crooning to her. But then he became grave, and his voice became small, as if to command greater respect by speaking its words simply.

“It is absolutely out of the question that you do not distinguish yourselves, that after one glimpse of you the great luminaries of this house do not reach out to pluck you like ripe fruit, that they do not compliment me upon your loveliness, your heat, your silent, ravening passion.”

Beauty’s tears flowed again down her cheeks.

He withdrew his hand slowly. She felt suddenly cold, abandoned. A little sob caught in her throat, but he had heard it.

Lovingly, almost sadly, he smiled at her. His face was shadowed and strangely vulnerable.

“Divine little Princess,” he whispered. “We are lost, you see, unless they notice us.”

“Yes, Master,” she whispered. She would have done anything to have him touch her again, hold her.

And the rich undertone of sadness in him startled her, enchanted her. 0, if only she could kiss his feet.

And, in a sudden impulse she did. She went down on the marble and touched her lips to his slipper. She did it over and over. And she wondered that the word “lost” had so delighted her.

As she rose again, clasping her hands behind her neck, she lowered her eyes in resignation. She should be slapped for what she had done. The room-its white marble, its gilded doors-was like so many facets of light. Why did this man produce this effect in her?