Everyone laughed politely. But they couldn't conceal their awe of him. They were staring at his armor, at his sword, and above all at his young face and dark black hair that fell to his shoulders.

The Prince drew the Cobbler closer. "Here," he said, "I give you permission if you like just to feel her treasures."

The old man smiled at the Prince gratefully and almost innocently. He reached out, and hesitating a moment, felt Beauty's br**sts. Beauty shivered, and tried obviously to repress a little cry.

The old man touched her sex.

Then the Prince drew up her little leash so that she was standing on tiptoe; her body stiffened and seemed to grow more tense and at the same time more lovely, br**sts, and bu**ocks high, her calf muscles lifted, her chin and throat a perfect line down to her swaying bosom.

"That's all. You must all go now," said the Prince.

Obediently they backed away, but they continued to watch, as the Prince mounted his horse, and instructing Beauty to clasp her hands behind her neck, he ordered her to walk before him.

Beauty led the way out of the Inn yard, the Prince walking his horse behind her.

The people made way for her. They couldn't take their eyes off her lovely vulnerable body, and they squeezed against the narrow walls of the town to follow the spectacle to the edge of the forest.

When they had left the town behind, the Prince told Beauty to come to him. He gathered her up and seated her before him again, and kissed her again, and scolded her:

"You found that so hard," he crooned. "Why were you so proud? Did you think yourself too good to be shown to the people?"

"I'm sorry, my Prince," she whispered.

"Don't you see, if you think only of pleasing me, and pleasing those to whom I show you, it will be simple for you." He kissed her ear, holding her tight to his chest. "You should have been proud of your br**sts and your shapely hips. You should have asked yourself, 'Am I pleasing my Prince? Do the people find me pleasing?'"

"Yes, my Prince," Beauty said meekly.

"You are mine, Beauty," the Prince said a little more sternly. "And there is no command that you must shrink from obeying ever. If I tell you to please the lowliest vassal in the field, you will strain to obey me perfectly. He is your Lord then because I have said so. All those to whom I offer you are your Lords."

"Yes, my Prince," she said, but she was in great distress. He stroked her br**sts, pinching them firmly now and then, and kissed her until he could feel her body struggling against him, and feel her ni**les growing hard. It seemed she wanted to speak.

"What is it, Beauty?"

"Pleasing you, my Prince, pleasing you..." she whispered, as though her thoughts had spread into a delirium.

"Yes, pleasing me, that is your life now. How many of those in the world know such clarity, such simplicity? You please me and I shall always tell you exactly how to please me."

"Yes, my Prince," she sighed. But she was crying again.

"I will treasure you all the more for it. The girl I found in the castle room was nothing to me such as you are now, my devoted Princess."

But the Prince was not entirely satisfied with the way in which he was instructing Beauty. He told her when they reached another town at nightfall that he was going to strip a little more dignity away from her to make it easier for her.

And while the townspeople pressed their faces to the leaded glass windows of the Inn, the Prince had Beauty wait on his table.

On her hands and knees she hurried across the rough boards of the Inn floor to fetch his plate from the kitchen. And though she was allowed to walk back with it, she was again on all fours to fetch his flagon. The soldiers devoured their supper, throwing silent glances at her by the light of the fire.

She wiped the table for the Prince and when a morsel of food spilled from his plate to the floor, he commanded Beauty to eat it. With tears spilling from her eyes, Beauty obeyed, and then he gathered her, still on her knees, into his arms and rewarded her with dozens of wet and loving kisses. Obediently she put her arms around his neck.

But this little morsel spilling had given him an idea. He ordered her to quickly fetch a plate from the kitchen again, and then told her to lay it on the floor at his feet.

He put food for her there from his plate, and told her to lift her heavy hair behind her shoulders and eat it only with her mouth.

"You are my kitten," he laughed gaily. "And I would forbid you all those tears if they weren't so beautiful. Do you want to please me?"

"Yes, my Prince," she said.

With his foot he pushed her plate several paces away and told her to turn her bu**ocks to him as she continued her meal. He admired it, realizing the red marks from her spanking had almost healed. With the toe of his leather boot, he nudged at the silken hair he could see between her legs, felt the moist plump lips beneath the hair, and sighed, thinking her so very beautiful.

When she had finished her meal, with her lips she pushed the plate back to his chair as he ordered her to do it, and then he wiped her lips himself and fed her some wine from his cup.

He watched her long beautiful throat as she swallowed, and kissed her eyelids.

"Now listen to me, I want you to learn from this," he said. "Everyone here can see you, all your charms, you're aware of it. But I want you to be very aware of it. Behind you, the townspeople at the windows are admiring you as they did when I brought you through the town. This should make you proud of yourself, not vain, but proud, proud that you have pleased me, and caught their admiration."

"Yes, my Prince," she said when he paused.

"Now think, you are very naked and very helpless, and you are mine completely."

"Yes, my Prince," she cried softly.

"That is your life now, and you are to think of nothing else, and regret nothing else. I want that dignity peeled away from you as if it were so many skins of the onion. I don't mean that you should ever be graceless. I mean that you should surrender to me."

"Yes, my Prince," she said.

The Prince looked up at the Innkeeper who stood at the kitchen door with his wife and his daughter. They came to attention at once. But the Prince looked only at the daughter. She was a young woman, very pretty in her own way, though nothing compared to Beauty. She had black hair and round cheeks, and a very tiny waist, and she dressed as many peasant women did, in a low-cut ruffled shirtwaist, and a short broad skirt that revealed her smart little ankles. She had an innocent face. She was watching Beauty in wonder, her big brown eyes moving anxiously to the Prince and then shyly back to Beauty who knelt at the Prince's feet in the firelight.