She thought of the crowds on the road. She tried to picture it. It would happen to her tomorrow.
She would feel this drenching humiliation, this pain, but all those people would be there to witness her humiliation, to amplify it.
The door had opened.
The Prince had come into the room. And the little tavern girl jumped up and was bowing to him.
"Your Highness," the girl said breathlessly.
"You've done your work very well," said the Prince.
"It was a great honor, your Highness," said the girl.
The Prince came to the bed, and clasping Beauty's right wrist, he drew her up out of the bed and stood her beside it. Obediently, Beauty looked down, and not knowing what to do with her hands, quickly brought them to the back of the neck.
She could almost feel the Prince's satisfaction.
"Excellent, my darling," he said. "Isn't she lovely, your Princess?" he said to the tavern girl.
"O, yes, your Highness."
"Did you talk to her and console her as you were bathing her?"
"O, yes, your Highness, I told her how much everyone admired her and how much they wanted to..."
"Yes, to see her," the Prince said.
There was a pause. Beauty wondered if they were both looking at her, and suddenly she felt herself naked in the sight of both of them. It seemed one or the other she could bear, but both of them staring at her breasts and sex was too much for her.
But the Prince embraced her as if seeing that she needed embracing, and gently squeezing her sore flesh, sent another soft shock of shameful pleasure through her. She knew her face was red again. She had always blushed so easily. And were there other ways in which he could tell what his hands did to her? She would cry again if she could not conceal this mounting pleasure.
"Down on your knees, my darling," said the Prince with a little snap of his fingers.
In a shock Beauty obeyed, seeing the rough floorboards before her. She could see the Prince's black boots, and then the crude leather shoes of the serving girl.
"Now, approach your servant and kiss her shoes. Show her how grateful you are for her devotion to you."
Beauty didn't stop to think of it. But she felt her tears come again as she obeyed, depositing each kiss on the worn leather of the girl's shoes as gracefully as she could. Above she heard the girl's murmured thanks to the Prince.
"Your Highness," the girl said, "it is I who want to kiss my Princess, I beg you."
The Prince must have nodded, because the girl fell to her knees, and, stroking Beauty's hair, kissed her upturned face with great reverence.
"Now, you see there the posts of the foot of the bed," the Prince said to the girl. Beauty of course knew that the bed had high posts, which held a coffered ceiling over it.
"Tie your mistress to those posts with her hands and legs quite wide apart so that as I lie down I can look up at her," said the Prince. "Tie her with these satin bands so her skin won't be injured, but tie her very firmly for she must sleep in this position and her weight must not pull her loose."
Beauty was stunned.
She was in a delirium as she was lifted to stand at the foot of the bed. She obeyed pliantly as the girl told her to spread her legs. She felt the satin go tight around her right ankle and then it firmly bound her left ankle, and then the girl, standing before her on the bed, bound the Princess's hands high on either side of her.
She was spread-eagled, looking down at the bed, and with terror, she realized that the Prince must see how she suffered; he must see the shame of the dampness between her legs, those fluids she could neither check or conceal, and, turning her face into her arm, she whimpered softly.
But the worst of it was that he did not mean to take her. He had tied her here out of reach of himself so that as he slept she must look down on him.
Now the girl was dismissed, secretly depositing a little kiss on Beauty's thigh before she left. And Beauty, crying softly, realized she was alone with the Prince. She did not dare to look at him.
"My beautiful obedient one," he sighed.
And to her horror she felt, as he drew near, the hard handle of that