question with several answers," he said. "But let me proceed. You can well imagine what my existence was, the hours of boredom and solitude broken only by these diversions: the Queen herself, Prince Gerald's punishment, or the fierce paddling from Felix. Well, soon, in spite of myself and my rage, I commenced to show my excitement whenever the Queen came into the chamber. She ridiculed me for it, but she marked it. And now and then, I could not conceal it when I saw Prince Gerald so boldly erect and taking his pleasure of one of the other slaves, or even taking the paddle. The Queen observed all this, and each time she saw that my organ was stiff and beyond my will, she would have Felix at once deliver a hard spanking to me. I struggled, I tried to curse her, and at first these spankings quelled my passion, but very soon they did not quell it. And the Queen added to my misery with her own hands, slapping my penis, stroking it, and then slapping it again at the very moment that Felix was punishing me. I twisted, struggled. It was no use. Very soon, I so craved the Queen's hands that I was moaning aloud and in one of these great tormented states, I did all that I could by gesture and manner to show that I would obey her.
"Of course I had no intention of doing so. I did so only long enough to be rewarded. And I wonder if you can imagine how difficult this was for me. I was put free on my hands and knees, and told to kiss her feet. It was as if I had only just been stripped naked. Never had I obeyed any command; nor been made to obey while free of shackles. And yet so tortured was I for relief, my sex so swollen with desire, that I forced myself to kneel at her feet and kiss her slippers. I shall never forget the magic of her hands when she touched me. I could feel the shock of passion through me, and as soon as she stroked and toyed with my sex, my passion was at once released, which greatly angered her.
"'You have no control,'" she said crossly to me, 'and for this you will be punished. But you have tried to submit and that is something.' But at that moment, I rose up and tried to run from her. I'd never had any intention of submitting to anything.
"Of course the Pages apprehended me at once. You must never think yourself safe from them. You may be in a vast, dimly lit chamber alone with a Lord. You may think yourself quite free when he falls asleep with his wine cup. But should you try to rise and escape, at once the Pages appear to subdue you. Only now that I am the Queen's trusted valet am I allowed to sleep alone in her chamber. The Pages dare not enter the darkened room where the Queen sleeps. So they have no way of knowing that I am here with you. But this is rare, most rare. And even now we might be discovered..."
"But what happened to you," Beauty pressed. "They apprehended you," she said fearfully.
"The Queen gave little consideration to how I should be punished. She sent for Lord Gregory and told him I was most incorrigible. That in spite of my fine hands and skin, and royal birth, I should be taken at once to the kitchen, there to serve for as long as she should decree...and indeed, she hoped she would remember I was there and send for me.
"I was carried down to the kitchen, protesting as usual. Mind you, I had little idea what was to happen to me. But very soon I saw that I was in a dark and dirty place, full of the grease and soot of the cooking where the pots were always boiling and dozens of menials were at work at the chopping of vegetables and the cleaning or plucking of the fowl, and all the other tasks that go to produce the banquets served here.
"No sooner was I brought in that they rejoiced to have a little amusement. I was surrounded by the crudest beings I had ever seen. 'But what is this to me,' I thought. 'I obey no one.'
"But in moments, I realized these creatures were no more interested in my compliance than they were interested in