Энн Райс - Beauty's Punishment

Tristan:

In a near daze, I thought of Beauty’s words, even as the auctioneer called for the bids, my eyes half closed, the screaming crowd a swirling current around me. Why should we obey? If we were bad, if we had been sentenced to this penitential place, why must we comply with anything?

Her questions echoed through the cries and jeers, the great inarticulate din that was the crowd’s true voice, purely brutal, endlessly renewing its own vigor. I clung to the silver memory of her exquisite little oval face, eyes flashing with irrepressible independence, as all the while I was poked, slapped, turned round, examined.

Maybe I took refuge in the strange inner dialogue, because it was too excruciating to bear the blazing actuality of the auction. I was on the block, just as they had threatened I would be. And the bids were rising from everywhere.

It seemed I saw everything and nothing, and in a dim moment of excruciating remorse, I pitied the foolish slave whom I had been, dreaming in the castle gardens of disobedience and the village.

“Sold to Nicolas, the Queen’s Chronicler.”

Then I was being roughly shuffled down the steps, and the man who had bought me stood before me. He seemed a silent flame in the midst of the press, the rough hands slapping at my erect cock, pinching me, tugging at locks of my hair. Wrapped in a perfect stillness all his own, he lifted my chin, and our eyes met, and with an exquisite shock, I thought, yes, this is my Master!

Exquisite.

If not the man himself, robust enough for all his slender height, then the manner of it.

Beauty’s question thudded in my ears. I think I closed my eyes for a moment.

I was being pushed and shoved through the crowd, told by a hundred taskmasters to march, to lift my knees, lift my chin, to keep that cock erect, while the auctioneer’s loud bark called the next slave behind me to the platform. The roaring din enveloped me.

I had only glimpsed my Master, but in the glimpse all the details of his being were fixed perfectly. Taller than I by only an inch, he had a square but lean face and a wealth of white hair curling thickly well above his shoulders. He was much too young for the white hair, almost boyish despite his great height and the pure ice of his gaze, his blue eyes full of darkness at the very centers. He seemed much too finely dressed for the village, but there were others like him on the balconies over the square, watching from high-backed chairs set in the open windows. Well-to-do shopkeepers and their wives, surely, but they had called him Nicolas, the Queen’s Chronicler.

He had long hands, beautiful hands that had almost languidly gestured for me to precede him.

At last I reached the end of the square, felt the last rough slaps and pinches. I found myself marching with low panting breaths in an empty street walled on either side with little taverns and stalls and bolted doorways. Everyone was at the auction, I saw with relief. And it was quiet here.

Nothing but the sound of my feet on the stones and the crisp click of my Master’s boots behind me. He was very close. So close I almost felt him brush against my buttocks. And then with a shock I felt the wallop of a stout strap and his voice very low near my ear: “Pick up those knees, and hold your head high and back.” At once I straightened, alarmed that I had let myself lose any measure of dignity. My cock stiffened, despite the fatigue in my calves. I pictured him again, so puzzling, that smooth young face, and the shining white hair, and the finely stitched velvet tunic.

The street twisted, narrowed, grew a little darker as the high-peaked roofs jutted overhead, and I flushed to see a young man and woman coming towards us, all crisp in clean starched clothes, their eyes dusting me carefully. I could hear my labored breath echoing up the walls. An old man on a stool at a doorway glanced up.

The belt walloped me again just as the couple drew alongside and I heard the man laugh to himself and murmur, “Beautiful, strong slave, Sir.”

But why did I try to march fast, to keep my head up? Why was I caught again in the same anxiety? Beauty had looked so rebellious when she asked her questions. I thought of her hot sex clamping so boldly to my cock. That, and the sound of my Master’s voice again urging me on, maddened me.

“Stop,” he said suddenly and jerked my arm around so I faced him. Again I saw those large shadowy blue eyes with the black centers, and the fine long mouth without a single line of mockery or hardness. Several shadowy shapes appeared ahead of us, and I felt a dreadful sinking feeling as I saw them pause to watch us.

“You have never been taught to march, have you?” he said, and he forced my chin so high I groaned and had to exert all my will not to struggle just a little. I didn’t dare to answer. “Well, you will learn to march for me,” he said and forced me down on my knees in the street before him. He took my face in both hands, though he still held the belt in his right, and tilted it up.

I felt powerless and full of shame gazing up at him. I could hear the sound of young men nearby murmuring and laughing to themselves. He forced me forward until I felt the bulge of his cock in his breeches, and my mouth opened and I pressed my kisses to it fervently. It came alive under my lips. And I felt my own hips move, though I tried to still them. I was trembling all over. His cock pulsed like a beating heart against the silk. The three observers were drawing closer.

Why do we obey? Is it not easier to obey? The questions tormented me.

“Now, up, and move fast when I tell you. And lift those knees,” he said, and I turned and rose, the belt cracking against my thighs. The three young men moved aside as I started off, but I could feel their attention; common youths they were, in coarse clothing. The belt caught me with fast thudding wallops. A disobedient Prince cast down lower than the village louts, one to be enjoyed as well as punished.

I was drenched in heat and confusion, yet I put all my strength into doing as I was told, the strap licking my calves and the backs of my knees, before it lashed hard against the undercurve of my buttocks.

What had I said to Beauty, that I had not come to the village to resist? But what was my meaning? It was easier to obey. I knew already the anguish that I had displeased and might be corrected again in front of these common boys; I might hear that iron voice again and this time in anger.

What would have soothed me, a kind word of approval? I had had so many from Lord Stefan, my Master at the castle, and yet I had deliberately provoked him, disobeyed him. In the early hours of the morning, I had risen and boldly walked out of Lord Stefan’s chamber, breaking and running to the far reaches of the garden where the pages saw me. I’d led them a merry chase through the thick trees and shrubbery. And when I was caught, I fought and kicked, until, gagged and bound, I was put before the Queen and a grieving and disappointed Stefan.

I had deliberately cast myself down. Yet in the midst of this terrifying place with its brutal, jeering throngs, I was struggling to stay ahead of the strap for another Master. My hair was in my eyes. My eyes swam with tears that had not yet started to flow. The twisting lane with its endless shingles and glistening windows dimmed in front of me.

“Stop,” my Master said, and gratefully I obeyed, feeling his fingers curled around my arm with a strange tenderness. There was the sound behind me of several pairs of feet and a little eruption of masculine laughter. So the miserable youths had followed!

I heard my Master say, “Why do you watch with such interest?” He was talking to them. “Don’t you want to see the auction?”