Beauty's Release - By A. N. Roquelaure & Anne Rice Page 0,45

not to see them surrounding me. I wanted to look for Lexius, see that familiar figure again in the trees, know he was watching. But all I could see were the dark shadows surrounding me. I saw the glint of splendid robes, the sharp gleam of the men’s eyes, heard the rise and fall of voices.

I was panting, and my cock was humiliatingly alive, moving without my will. But what was that in the Sultan’s garden? Now and then one of the men reached out and slapped my cock, or pulled at my nipples. A mercy and a penance. A little laughter from the group, some observation. The situation was unbearably subdued and intimate. I tensed, unable to shield myself. And when my welts were pinched I cried softly, keeping my mouth closed.

The garden was quieter now. But there still came the sound of punishing straps and hoarse, triumphant cries of pleasure.

Finally, two of the grooms appeared with another slave and they took me by the hair, and pulled me out of the circle as they pushed the new slave into it. They snapped their fingers for me to follow them.

LAURENT: THE GREAT ROYAL PRESENCE

I MOVED AFTER them across the grass, glad for the moment to be out of the glare of attention. Yet it was enervating, the manner in which they whispered to each another and only occasionally coaxed me on with a pat on the head or a tug of my hair.

The garden itself was full of those who still feasted, and panting slaves on display as I had been. Some I saw were still on the crosses or had been put back, and many twisted and struggled violently.

I didn’t see Lexius.

But we soon came to a brightly lighted room opening off the garden. There were grooms busy with hundreds of slaves. Scattered tables were covered with manacles, straps, caskets of jewels, and other playthings.

I was made to stand up, and a good-sized bronze phallus was obviously chosen for me and I stood numbly watching as it was oiled, marveling at the detailed carving of the thing, the way the circumcised tip and even the surface of the skin was beautifully realized. It had a round loop of metal, a hook, on the wide, round base end of it.

The grooms never even glanced up as they worked. They expected quiet and total compliance. They inserted the phallus, pushing it well up into me, and then put long leather cuffs on my arms and brought my arms back, forcing me to thrust out my chest, and they bound these bracelets tight to the hook on the base of the phallus.

My arms are rather long even for a man of my height and, had they bound my wrists, it would have been more comfortable. But the bracelet was above my wrists, and so my shoulders were held well back and my head up, when this was finished.

I could see other moist, well-muscled slaves in the room being manacled in the same fashion. In fact, there were only big, powerfully built slaves here, none of the smaller, more delicate ones. And the cocks were large, too. And some of the slaves had been soundly thrashed. They had very red backsides.

I tried to yield to this position, to accept the way it forced my chest out, but it was hard for me. The metal phallus felt amazingly hard and punishing, not at all like something made of wood and covered with leather. Next, a large stiff collar was buckled to my neck, one that had several long, narrow, delicate straps dangling from it. It was loose but very strong and rigid, and it forced my chin up high as it rested firmly on my shoulders. Immediately, the long strap that hung down in back—I could feel this—was buckled tight to the phallus hook. Two more straps running from a single hook on the front of the collar were drawn down over my chest and under me, past my organs on either side, and they too were buckled tight to the phallus.

All this was done perfunctorily and with efficient, hard little pulls by the grooms, who then patted my buttocks and made me turn around for a quick inspection. I found it infinitely worse than the easy passivity of the cross. And their eyes moving over me, impersonally yet not indifferently, further intensified the feeling of apprehension.

I was patted again on the buttocks, the mere touch bringing the tears to my eyes, though