fetch a bowl of warm water, a sea sponge, and with my teeth only to hold it, bathe his genitals.
"He was positioned on a low table for this, kneeling obediently as I washed his buttocks, dipped the sponge again, bathed his scrotum and finally his penis. But the Queen wanted more than this. I must now use my tongue to cleanse him. I was horrified, and shedding tears like any Princess. But she was adamant. With my tongue I licked his penis, the balls, and then delved into the crack of his buttocks, even entering into his anus, which had a sour, almost salty taste to it.
"All the while he showed his obvious pleasure and longing.
"His buttocks were sore, of course. And it gave me great satisfaction that the Queen seldom spanked him anymore herself, but rather had it done by his groom before he was brought into her presence. So he didn't suffer for her; rather he suffered in the Slaves' Hall, ignored by those around him. Yet it was mortifying to me that my tongue stroking his welts and red marks gave him pleasure.
"Finally, the Queen ordered him to kneel up, his hands behind his back, and told me I should now fully reward him. I knew what this meant, yet I pretended I did not. She told me to take his penis in my mouth and drain it.
"I can't explain how I felt then. I felt I could not do it. And yet within seconds I had obeyed, so afraid of displeasing her as I was, and his thick penis was pushing against the back of my throat, my lips and jaws aching as I tried to suck it properly. The Queen gave me instructions, to make my strokes long, to use my tongue, and to go faster and faster. She spanked me unmercifully as I obeyed, her smacking blows in perfect rhythm with my sucking. At last his seed filled my mouth. I was commanded to swallow it.
"But the Queen was not at all pleased with my reticence. She said that I must show no disinclination towards anything."
Beauty nodded, remembering the Prince's words to her in the Inn that even the lowly must be served for his pleasure.
"So she sent for all those Princes who had been tortured over a day's time in the Hall of Punishments, and led me to a large adjoining parlor.
"When six young men were brought in on their knees, I begged her to be merciful the only way I could, with my moans and kisses. I can't tell you how their presence affected me. I'd been mistreated by the peasants in the kitchen; I'd humbly, greedily, obeyed a rude stable boy. But these seemed both lower and higher than those others. They were Princes of my same rank in the world, haughty, proud in their own lands, and also they were abject slaves as lowly now as I was.
"I couldn't understand my own misery. I realized then that there would be endless variations in humiliation. It was not a hierarchy of punishments I face; it was rather endless changes.
"But I was too frightened of failing the Queen to think very much. Again I lost sight of the past and the future.
"As I knelt at her feet weeping silently, she ordered all of these Princes who were sore and aching and starved from the tortures of the Hall of Punishments to take paddles from the chest she kept for the purpose.
"They formed a line of six to my right, each of his knees, his penis hardened as much by the sight of my suffering as by any pleasure that soon awaited them.
"I was told to kneel up with my hands behind my back. As I ran this gauntlet I would not even be allowed the easier more concealing position on all fours. Rather I must struggle straight-backed, my knees apart, my own organ revealed, my progress slow as I sought to escape their paddles. They could see my face as well. I felt more exposed than I had when tethered in the kitchen.
"The Queen's game was simple. I would be made to run the gauntlet and the Prince whose paddle pleased her the most, that is, the one whose paddle struck me the hardest and fiercest, would then be rewarded before I again commenced the gauntlet and so on.
"I was urged by her to great speed; if I faltered, if my punishers accomplished too many blows, I should be delivered to