Anne Rice: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty

“Very, very lovely,” he said, his right hand moving languidly over her rounded buttocks, forcing them ever so slightly apart.

Beauty was crying aloud, but muffling her cries into the bed, her hands held out in front of her by his long left arm.

And now with his right hand he spanked her buttocks hard and heard her cries grow louder. It wasn’t really much of a slap.

But it left a red mark on her. And he spanked her hard again, and he felt her writhing against him, the heat and moisture of her sex against his leg, and again he spanked her.

“I think you are sobbing more from the humiliation than the pain,” he scolded her in a soft voice.

She was struggling not to make her cries too loud.

He flattened out his right hand, and feeling the heat of her reddened buttocks drew it up and delivered another series of hard, loud slaps, smiling as he watched her struggle.

He could have spanked her much harder, for his own pleasure, and without really hurting her. But he thought the better of it. He had so many nights ahead of him for these delights.

He lifted her up now so that she was standing in front of him.

“Toss your hair back,” he commanded. Her tear-stained face was unspeakably beautiful, her lips trembling, her blue eyes gleaming with the dampness of the tears. She obeyed immediately.

“I don’t think you were so very spoilt,” he said. “I find you very obedient and eager to please, and this makes me very happy.”

He could see her relief.

“Clasp your hands behind your neck,” he said, “under your hair. That’s it. Very good.” He lifted her chin again. “And you have a lovely modest habit of looking down. But now I want you to look directly at me.”

She obeyed shyly, miserably. It seemed she felt her nakedness and her helplessness more fully now as she looked at him. Her lashes were matted and dark, and her blue eyes larger than he had thought.

“Do you find me handsome?” he asked her. “Ah, but before you answer, I should like to know the truth from you, not what you think I should like to hear, or what would be best for you to say, you understand me?”

“Yes, my Prince,” she whispered. She seemed calmer.

He reached out, massaged her right breast lightly, and then stroked her downy underarms, feeling the little curve of the muscle there beneath the tiny wisp of golden hair, and then he stroked that full, moist hair between her legs so that she sighed and trembled.

“Now,” he said, “answer my question, and describe what you see. Describe me as if you had only just met me and were confiding in your chambermaid.”

Again she bit her lip, which he dearly loved, and then, her voice a little diminished by uncertainty, she said:

“You are very handsome, my Prince, no one could deny that. And for one… for one…”

“Go on,” he said. He drew her just a little closer so that her sex was against his knee, and putting his right arm about her, he cradled her breast in his left hand and let his lips touch her cheek.

“And for one so young to be so commanding,” she said, “it’s not what one might expect.”

“And tell me how does that show itself in me, other than my actions?”

“Your manner, my Prince,” she said, her voice gaining a little strength. “The look of your eyes, such dark eyes… your face. There are none of the doubts of youth in it.”

He smiled and kissed her ear. He wondered why the wet little cleft between her legs was so very hot. His fingers could not keep from touching it. Twice already he’d had her today, and he would have her again, but he was thinking he should go about it more slowly.

“Would you like it if I were older?” he whispered.

“I had thought,” she said, “that it would be easier. To be commanded by one so very young,” she said, “is to feel one’s helplessness.”

It seemed the tears had welled up and were spilling out of her eyes, so he pushed her gently back so he might see them.

“My darling, I have awakened you from a century’s sleep, and restored you father’s Kingdom. You’re mine. And you won’t find me such a hard master. Only a very thorough master. When you think night and day and every moment only of pleasing me, things will be very easy for you.”

And as she struggled not to look away, he could see again the relief in her face, and that she was in complete awe of him.

“Now,” he said, pushing his left fingers between her legs, and drawing her close again so that she let out a little gasp before she could stop herself, “I want more of you than I’ve had before. Do you know what I mean, my Sleeping Beauty?”

She shook her head; for this moment she was in terror.

He lifted her up onto the bed and laid her down.

The candles threw a warm, almost rosy light over her. Her hair fell down on either side of the bed, and she seemed on the verge of crying out, her hands struggling to keep still at her sides.

“My darling, you have a dignity about you that shields you from me, much like your lovely golden hair shrouds you and shields you. Now I want you to surrender to me. You’ll see, and you’ll be very surprised that you wept when I first suggested it.”

The Prince bent over her. He parted her legs. He could see the battle she fought not to cover herself or turn away from him. He stroked her thighs. Then with his finger and thumb, he reached into the silky damp hair itself and felt those tender little lips and forced them very wide open.

Beauty gave a terrible shudder. With his left hand he covered her mouth, and behind his hand she cried softly. It seemed easier for her with him covering her mouth and that was all right for now, he thought. She shall be taught everything in time.

And with his right fingers, he found that tiny nodule of flesh between her tender nether lips and he worked it back and forth until she raised her hips, arching her back, in spite of herself. Her little face under his hand was the picture of distress. He smiled to himself.

But even as he smiled, he felt the hot fluid between her legs for the first time, the real fluid which had not come before with her innocent blood. “That’s it, that’s it, my darling,” he said. “And you mustn’t resist your Lord and master, hmmmm?”

Now he opened his clothing and took out his hard, eager sex, and mounting her he let it rest against her thigh as he continued to stroke her and work her.

She was twisting from one side to the other, her hands gathering up the soft sheets at her sides into knots, and it seemed her whole body grew pink, and the nipples of her breasts looked as hard as if they were tiny stones. He could not resist them.

He bit at them with his teeth, playfully, not hurting her. He licked them with his tongue, and then he licked her sex, too, and as she struggled, and blushed and moaned beneath him, he mounted her, slowly.

Again she arched her back. Her breasts were suffused with red. And as he drove his organ into her, he felt her shudder violently with unwilling pleasure.

An awful cry was muffled by the hand over her mouth; she was shuddering so violently it seemed she all but lifted him on top of her.

And then she lay still, moist, pink, with her eyes closed, breathing deeply as the tears flowed silently.

“That was lovely, my darling,” he said. “Open your eyes.”

She did it timidly.

But then she lay looking up at him.

“This has been so hard for you,” he whispered. “You could not even imagine these things happening to you. And you are red with shame, and shaking with fear, and you believe perhaps it’s one of the dreams you dreamed in your hundred years. But it’s real, Beauty,” he said. “And it is only the beginning! You think I’ve made you my Princess. But I’ve only started. The day will come when you can see nothing but me as if I were the sun and the moon, when I mean all to you, food, drink, the air you breathe. Then you will truly be mine, and these first lessons… and pleasures…” he smiled, “will seem like nothing.”