The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty (6 page)

“I’m sorry,” said the girl. “I am trying so to be gentle.”

“No, you must go on. Rub it in well,” sighed Beauty, “it feels good, actually. Maybe it’s that moment when you take your fingers away.” How try to explain it, her buttocks flooded with this pain, itching with it, the welts little hard pebblelike bits of pain, and those fingers pinching them and then releasing them.

“Everyone adores you, Princess,” the girl whispered. “Everyone has seen your beauty, with nothing to disguise it or hide your defects, and you have no defects. And they are swooning over you, Princess.”

“Is that really so? Or do you say it to console me?” asked Beauty.

“O, it is so,” said the girl. “O, you should have heard the rich women out in the Inn yard tonight, all of them pretending they weren’t envious, but all of them knew that stripped they couldn’t hold a candle to you, Princess. And of course the Prince was so beautiful, so handsome and so ...”

“Ah, yes,” sighed Beauty.

The girl had coated the buttocks now and was putting even more ointment into the flesh. And she worked some of it into Beauty’s thighs, her fingers stopping just before the hair between Beauty’s legs, and again, with fierce annoyance and shame, Beauty felt that pleasure coming back. And with this girl!

“O, if the Prince were to know it,” she thought suddenly. She couldn’t imagine him being pleased, and it suddenly occurred to her that he might punish her any time she felt this pleasure without his giving it to her. She tried to put it out of her mind. She wished she knew where he was now.

“Tomorrow,” the girl said, “when you go on to the Prince’s castle, the road all along the way will be lined with those who want to see you. Word is spreading all through the Kingdom ...”

Beauty gave a little start at these words. “Are you sure of it?” she said fearfully. It was too much to think of suddenly. She remembered that peaceful moment in the afternoon forest. She had been alone ahead of the Prince and had some how managed to forget the soldiers following him. And suddenly to think of people all along the road waiting to see her! She remembered the crowded village streets, those inevitable moments when her naked thighs or breasts even had been brushed by an arm or the fabric of a skirt—she felt her breath halt.

“But he wants this of me,” she thought. “Not just that he see me but that all see me.”

“It gives the people such pleasure to see you,” he had said tonight as they entered this little town. He had prodded her on up ahead of him, and she had been crying so fiercely as she saw all about her those shoes and boots from which she dared not look up.

“But you are so lovely, Princess, and they will be telling their grandchildren about it,” said the tavern girl. “They cannot wait to feast their eyes upon you, and you will not disappoint them, no matter what they have heard. Imagine that, never disappointing anyone ...” The girl’s voice trailed off as though she were in thought. “O, I wish I could follow you to see it.”

“But you don’t understand,” Beauty whispered, unable suddenly to contain herself. “You don’t realize ...”

“Yes, I do,” said the girl. “Of course I do ... I’ve seen the Princesses when they come through in their magnificent gowns covered with jewels, and I know how it must feel to be opened to the world as if you were a flower, all of their eyes like fingers prying at you, but you are so ... so splendid finally, Princess, and so rare. And you are his Princess, and he has claimed you and all know you are in his power and must do as he commands you. It is no shame to you, Princess. How could it be, with such a great Prince to command you? O, do you think that there aren’t women who would give up everything to take your place, if only they had your beauty?”

Beauty was startled by this. She thought about it. Women giving up everything, taking her place. It had not occurred to her. She remembered that moment in the forest.

But then she remembered being spanked in the Inn, and all of those others watching. She remembered sobbing helplessly, and hating her buttocks propped up in the air, and her legs open, and that paddle coming down again and again. Finally the pain was the least of it.

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 floor-boards 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 dreadful wooden paddle nudging her moist and secret place, so cruelly exposed by her open legs.

She struggled to pretend this was not happening. But she could feel that revealing fluid, and she knew the Prince knew of her tormenting pleasure.

“I have taught you much, and I am so very pleased with you,” he said, “and so now you know a new suffering, a new sacrifice for your Lord and master. I could soothe the burning craving between your legs but I shall let you suffer it and know the meaning of it, and that only your Prince can give you that relief you long for.”

She couldn’t control her moan, even though she muffled it against her arm. She feared that any moment she might move her hips in helpless, humiliating entreaty.

He had snuffed the candles.

The room was dark.

Beneath her feet she felt the mattress give with his weight.

She leaned her head against her arm and felt secure in the satin bonds as she let herself hang there. But this torment, this torment ... and there was nothing she could do to alleviate it.

She prayed the swelling between her legs would die away, as the throbbing in her buttocks was cooling and dying away. And then falling to sleep, she thought calmly, dreamily almost, of the crowds awaiting her on the roads to the Prince’s castle.

B
EAUTY WAS breathless and flushed as they left the Inn; but it was not so much on account of the crowds that lined the village streets, nor those she would see ahead following the ribbon of road as it ran through the wheat fields.

The Prince had sent couriers ahead, and as Beauty’s hair was dressed with white flowers, he told her they would reach his castle by afternoon if they were to hurry.

“We shall be in my Kingdom,” he announced proudly, “as soon as we are on the other side of the mountains.”

Beauty could not quite anatomize the feeling this aroused in her.

But the Prince, as if sensing her strange confusion, kissed her full on the mouth before mounting his horse, and said in a soft voice so that only those around them could hear:

“When you enter my Kingdom, you shall be mine more completely than ever. You will be mine beyond reprieve, and it will be easier for you to forget all that went before that time, and devote your life to me only.”

And now they left the village, the Prince walking his magnificent horse just behind Beauty as she made her way quickly over the warm cobblestones.

The sun was hotter than before, and the crowds were very great, the farmers having all come to the road, and people were pointing and staring, and standing on tiptoe all the better to see, as Beauty felt the soft gravel under her feet and now and then tufts of silken grass or wild-flower.

She walked with her head up as the Prince commanded her, but her eyes were half closed, and she felt the cool air soothing her naked limbs, and she could not stop thinking of the Prince’s castle.

Now and then a low voice from the crowd would make her suddenly and painfully aware of her nakedness, and even once or twice a hand shot out to touch her thigh before the Prince behind her cracked his whip immediately.

Finally they entered the dark wooded pass that led through the mountains, and there were only occasional clusters of peasants here and there peeping out from the thick-limbed oaks, and a mist lay upon the ground, and Beauty felt herself drowsy and soft even as she walked. Her breasts felt heavy and soft to her, and her nakedness felt oddly natural.

But her heart became a tiny hammer when the sunlight streamed ahead to reveal an ever-widening green valley.

A great cry rose from the soldiers behind her, and she realized that indeed the Prince was home, and up ahead, across the sloping green, she saw upon a great precipice overhanging the valley the Prince’s castle.

It was far greater in size than Beauty’s home, a wilderness of dark towers. It might enclose a whole world, it seemed, and its open gates yawned like a mouth before the drawbridge.

Now from everywhere the subjects of the Prince, mere specks in the distance growing ever and ever larger, ran toward the road that wound down and then up again before them.

Riders came over the drawbridge and rode toward them with a blast of trumpets, their banners streaming behind them.

The air was warmer here, as if this place were protected from the sea breeze. It was nothing as dark as the narrow villages and forests through which they had passed. And Beauty could see everywhere the peasants dressed in lighter and brighter colors.

But they were drawing ever nearer to the castle, and in the distance Beauty could see not the peasants whose admiration she had received all along the road, but a great crowd of magnificently dressed Lords and Ladies.

She must have uttered a little cry and bowed her head, because the Prince came up alongside of her. She felt his arm gather her close to the horse, and he whispered :

“Now, Beauty, you know what I expect of you.”

But they had already reached the steep approach to the bridge, and Beauty could see it was just as she feared, men and women of her own rank and all clad in white velvet trimmed in gold, or gay and festive colors. She dared not look, and felt the blush in her cheeks again and for the first time was tempted to throw herself on the mercy of the Prince and beg him to conceal her.

It was one thing to be shown to the rustics who praised her and would make a legend of her, but she could already hear the babble of haughty speech and laughter. This was unendurable to her.