Beauty's Release - By A. N. Roquelaure & Anne Rice Page 0,27

up in front of him.

I could feel his eyes moving over me, see him looking over Tristan. Then came another command—his voice like a whip itself stroking my nesh—and the grooms quickly brought out the leather and gold ornaments. They lifted my balls and buckled a broad jeweled ring around my cock, keeping my balls pushed forward.

It had been done before at the castle, but never had I been so hungry.

And then the clamps for the nipples again, only this time they didn’t have leashes attached. They were small and tight, and little weights dangled from them.

I couldn’t help but wince when they were put on. And Lexius saw it, heard it. I didn’t dare look up, but I saw him turn towards me and I felt his hand suddenly on my head. He stroked my hair. Then he tapped the weight dangling from my left nipple and made it swing on its hook, and I winced again, and blushed again, remembering what he had said about silently showing our passion.

It wasn’t hard to do. I felt clean and polished inside and out and with no means of combating his power over me. The passion gnawed in my loins and the tears rolled down my face, suddenly.

He pressed the back of his hand against my lips, and I kissed it immediately. Then he did the same to Tristan, and it seemed Tristan made a more graceful art of the kiss, his whole body yielding to it. I felt my tears get thicker, come faster and hotter.

What was happening to me in this strange palace? Why in these simple preliminaries was I reduced to this? After all, I was the runaway, the rebel.

But here I was, dropping on silent command to my hands and knees beside Tristan, our foreheads to the floor, and we were both following Lexius out of the bath into the corridor.

We came to a large garden full of low fig trees and flower beds, and I saw immediately what was going to happen to us. But to make certain we understood, Lexius touched us under our chins with the thong to make us raise our heads and look in front of us, and then he took us, still on our hands and knees, on a little journey along the path so that we could study more thoroughly the slaves who decorated the garden.

They were male slaves, at least twenty of them, their natural skin color unchanged, each mounted on a smooth wooden cross that was planted in the earth amid the flowers and the grass, under the low tree branches.

But the crosses weren’t like the village Punishment Cross. They had high crossbars that went under the arms of the slaves which were tied behind them. Wide, curved hooks of polished brass held the weight of the spread-apart thighs, and the soles of the feet of each slave were pressed together, ankles tethered.

Their heads hung forward so that they could see their own erect cocks, and their wrists were bound to the cross in back by chains connected to the large gilded phalluses protruding from their backsides. Not a one looked up or dared to move as we made our little walk in the garden.

And I saw that silent servants, heavily robed and moving with obsequious speed, were spreading brightly colored carpets on the grass and setting low tables upon them, as if for a banquet. Brass lamps were being hung in the trees and torches placed along the walls that enclosed the place.

Cushions were laid all about. And silver and gold jugs of wine were already set in place, and on the tables were trays of goblets. It was clear a meal would be served here at nightfall.

I could imagine the feel of the crossbar under my arms, imagine the smooth cold brass of the hooks curving around my legs, the penetration of the phallus. In the lamplight the vision of the mounted slaves would be stunning. And here the Lords would dine with these sculptures to delight them if they chanced to look up—and what might follow? Would we be taken down, raped?

But it was a very long time before nightfall. I didn’t want to be on this cross, suffering, waiting—seeing the gleaming torsos of the others, their primed cocks—no, this was too much, I thought. I can’t bear this.

Our tall, elegantly haughty Master led us to the very center of the garden. The air was warm and sweet, just a little breeze. There was Dmitri,