the aching, the stinging, I found myself wriggling and trying to escape the blows, though I'd sworn I wouldn't. I'd remind myself to be still only to slip into writhing again, which amused the Queen immensely. When I was very sore, I felt very tired, tired of the struggle, and the Queen knew then I was most vulnerable. She would touch me. Her hands felt very delicious on my welts though I hated her. Then she'd stroke my organ, telling me in my ear what ecstasies I might enjoy in serving her. I would receive her full attention, she said, and be bathed and babied by the grooms, instead of roughly scrubbed and hung on the wall. I would weep sometimes because I couldn't stop myself. The Pages would laugh. The Queen thought it was all quite laughable, too. Then I would be returned to the wall to be broken down by more interminable boredom.
"Now all this time, I never saw the other slaves punished by the Queen. She would carry out her pleasures and games in her many parlors. Sometimes I would hear cries and blows through the doors, but seldom.
"But, as I began to exhibit an erect and craving organ in spite of myself, and began to actually look forward to the terrible spankings...in spite of myself...these two interludes not being connected as yet in my mind...she brought in a slave now and then for her amusement.
"I can't tell you the rages of jealousy I felt the first time I had to witness a slave punished. This was a young Prince Gerald, whom she adored in those days. He was sixteen, and had the roundest, smallest buttocks. They were irresistible to the Pages, and the grooms, as yours are..."
Beauty blushed at this.
"Don't count yourself unlucky. Listen to what I say about the boredom," Alexi said, and he kissed her tenderly.
"As I was saying, this slave was brought in and the Queen stroked and teased him shamelessly. She placed him over her lap and proceeded to deliver a naked-handed spanking as she did to you, and I could see his erect penis, and how he tried to keep it away from her leg for fear he would spill his passion and displease her. He was utterly compliant and devoted to her. He had no dignity in his surrender at all, but scampered to obey her every command, his beautiful little face always flushed, his skin pink and white and full of blushes where he'd been punished. I couldn't take my eyes off him. I thought I can never be made to do these things. Never -- I should die first. Yet I watched him, and I watched her punish him and prod him and kiss him.
"And when he had pleased her well, how she rewarded him! She had brought in six Princes and Princesses from whom he must choose with whom he would couple. Of course his choices were to please her. He chose the Princes always.
"And as she presided over him with the paddle, he would mount one of these who knelt for it obediently enough and, receiving the Queen's blows, he would achieve ecstasy. It was a tantalizing spectacle. His own plump little buttocks being soundly spanked, the red-faced submissive slave on his knees to receive Prince Gerald, and the boy's erect cock going in and out of the undefended anus. Sometimes the Queen spanked the little victim first, gave him a merry chase about the room, a chance to escape his fate if he could fetch a pair of slippers for her in his teeth before she could achieve ten good cracks of the paddle. The victim would scurry to obey. But seldom was he able to find the slippers and bring them to the proper place before the Queen had soundly paddled him. So he had to bed over for Prince Gerald, who was too well endowed for sixteen surely.
"Of course I told myself all this was disgusting and beneath me. I should never play such games." He laughed softly, and squeezed Beauty against his chest with his arm, kissed her forehead. "I've played them enough since," he said.
"But now and then, too, Prince Gerald did choose a Princess. This angered the Queen, though only slightly. She had the little girl victim perform some hopeless tasks in the hope of escape, the same game with the slippers, or the getting of a hand mirror or the like, all the while driving her mercilessly with the