"I had to learn serenity in facing humiliations that brought others into play, and this was not easy.

"My first days with the Queen were mostly training in her bed chamber. I found myself rushing as diligently as Prince Gerald had to obey her slightest whim, and, proving very clumsy with her clothes, was often severely punished.

"But the Queen did not want me merely for these servile tasks which other slaves had been trained to perform to perfection. She wanted to study me, to break me down and make of me a toy for her complete amusement."

"A toy," Beauty whispered. She had felt like a toy in the Queen's hands exactly.

"And it amused her greatly in the first weeks to see me serve other Princes and Princesses for her pleasure. The first I had to serve was Prince Gerald. He was now nearing the end of his service, but he did not know that, and he was in a paroxysm of jealousy at my reformation. The Queen, however, had splendid ideas for rewarding him and soothing him, and at the same time developing me according to her wishes.

"Daily he was brought to her chambers and bound with his hands over his head against the wall so that he might watch me struggling with my tasks, and this was a torment to him until he realized that one of my tasks would be to give him pleasure.

"I was being driven to distraction then by the Queen's paddle, the flat of her hand, and the struggle to learn grace and accomplishment. All day I fetched, laced shoes, bound girdles, brushed hair, polished jewels, and performed any other menial tasks the Queen wished, my bu**ocks forever sore, my thighs and calves marked from the paddle, my face stained with tears as any other slave in the castle.

"And when the Queen could see that Prince Gerald's jealousy had hardened his penis to extremity, when he was all but ready to discharge his passion without the aid of any stimulant, then she set me to bathing him and satisfying him.

"I can't tell you how degrading this was to me. His body was nothing but my enemy. And yet I was to 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 bu**ocks, 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 bu**ocks, 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 bu**ocks 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 them for an hour of rough sport out of her sight, I was promised. This terrified me. She would not even be there. It would not be for her pleasure.

"I commenced at once. All their blows felt the same to me, loud, violent, and their laughter filled my ears as I struggled awkwardly in a position they had long ago learned to accomplish easily.

"Rest came only with each little session of satisfying the Prince who had marked me the most severely. I must return to him where he knelt. The others were free to watch and watch they did, and then give permission to offer their instructions.

"I had a half dozen masters eager to teach me contemptuously how to satisfy the one whom they supported with their arms as he shut his eyes and enjoyed the warm anxious sucking I afforded.