“She knows much,” I said to Alexi.

“That’s why she is in charge of all slaves in this kingdom,” said Alexi. “That’s why the King and Queen completely depend on her. As she admitted, she does not know what we know. She is very young and has never been anyone’s naked slave. But her comprehension of this world we share is unsurpassed. Do you want me to go?”

“No!” I took his hand almost desperately. “Not at all.”

A naked serving girl refilled my goblet. And a boy appeared with a fresh mug of mulled wine for Alexi.

The whipping master drew himself up, wiped his heavy gray mustache with his enormous hand, and a little sprinkling of applause broke out here and there. His face shone bright in the candlelight. No doubt dusk was coming down in the crowded street beyond.

“Come now, poor little piglet,” he said to the slave boy who had been waiting his turn all this while—first on the ramp.

Oh, is there no end to beauty here, I thought.

“Piglet” was the word often used in the village for a male slave, just as “partridge” was for a female, and this young man was a plump pink piglet indeed, with deliciously shaped hindquarters and an exquisite face. He made his way on hands and knees with a very straight back and graceful fingers up onto the platform and then knelt up for the whipping master to take the dreaded red leather tag from his neck, which was tossed in a gilded basket to the man’s far right.

“Such an expression,” said Alexi. “What is he, do you think, twenty?”

“Maybe,” I said, “and like a young god.”

The boy had a marvelously well-proportioned face with a narrow nose and large sensuous inviting lips. His chin was strong, and so were his shoulders, and his hair fell down on his shoulders, rather like that of Prince Richard, but it was pale yellow, perhaps much bleached by the summer sun.

He glanced timidly at the whipping master with gray eyes, but there was no cowardice in him.

“Now, what have you done, young Valentine,” said the whipping master, affectionately smoothing the boy’s hair. “Come now, youngling, tell the truth, why has your master sent you here again today?”

Suddenly tears sprang to the boy’s eyes. He kept his hands beneath his hair and clamped on his neck but his chest heaved.

“He is put out with me, sir,” he said under his breath, but I could easily hear him. “No matter what I do my hands shake. I spilt his ink. I dropped the bottle.”

“Well, you’ll get over that, poor little brat,” said the whipping master, smiling. “You’ll soon learn not to fumble at all.” He patted the boy again gently, first on his head and then on his backside. He kissed the boy’s cheek. “Now you know I’m going to give you a sound spanking, don’t you?” he said. “And that’s going to help you to be a good boy. Spanking softens the soul.”

He hugged and kissed the boy again and then with his left hand pulled him forward by the hair until the boy lay over his lap.

“Now you keep the cock well behaved, little fellow,” he said, “or I’ll be spanking you all evening, you know that, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir,” the boy said. And only now were the tears gathering. The “over the knee” position almost always brought tears, tears even from the most proud and mocking.

The whipping master drew on a yellow leather glove and picked up a glob of fresh cream and worked this into the boy’s hindquarters, lovingly massaging his thighs.

“Such pretty plump legs, muscular yet soft,” he crooned to the boy. “I have to confess, Valentine, paddling you is always a pleasure. Oh, I know you’re going to be bawling in a minute, but you’re such a little pork pie, so ripe, so pretty. Now you be a good boy, and you think on your faults with every smack!”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy again.

I glanced at Prince Richard, so far away, sitting against the ramp. His eyes were fixed on the boy. Ink. The matter of ink put me in mind of that scholar who used to chat with me when I was a Herm against the wall.

“Now, you pick up those balls of yours,” said the whipping master, “and you hold them up to your cock and you keep that cock up off my apron, little fellow, understand?”

“Yes, sir,” said the boy yet again.

“You see what I mean?” said Alex. “You hear how he talks to them?”

“Well, the guiding genius over there must approve of it,” I said. It was igniting my blood, the tone of his voice, its appeal to utter dependency in the slave.

“Oh, yes, or he would be replaced!” said Alexi. “And he and Eva are developing names for these types of whipping masters and all masters and mistresses and grooms—scolding mistresses, angry masters, comforting masters, cross mistresses, and so on—and by the way, the smallest of the Punishment Shops has whipping mistresses only and some of them are a spectacle indeed.”

The whipping master patted the boy tenderly all over his gleaming bottom and thighs, then stripped off the glove and picked up the inevitable gold paddle which had a pair of pretty blue ribbons streaming from its tooled handle.

“Now who’s going to be the best possible little boy for me, hmm?” he asked.

“I am, sir,” said Valentine.

“And who’s going to go back to his master and try very hard to please?”

“I am, sir,” came the inevitable reply.

Down came the paddle with such a riff of blows I was amazed. I drew back, glancing in surprise at Alexi.

The boy got fifteen to twenty spanks within seconds and they were hard. And they didn’t stop. The whipping master raised his eyebrows and appeared to be singing as he spanked away, and Valentine’s head was bowed and he was soon dancing on his knees and crying completely, indeed reduced to the deepest and most complete vulnerability before our eyes. But his hands held fast to his gathered scrotum and hard cock and though he bounced on his knees—he couldn’t help it—his organ never once touched the master’s apron.

The rumble of voices in the place grew louder, more spirited, though no one actually turned to look—that I could see—at the poor boy.

I could feel the current of excitement passing through the room, as if the paddle were a drum beating a lusty cadence.

Now the boy was squirming desperately in that hopeless effort to escape the paddle, the body unable to accept what the mind knew. The loud hard spanks came slower, but the boy was woefully red.

The whipping master snapped the fingers of his left hand for his groom and made a gesture I did not know.

At once the groom came round and reached down for the boy’s ankles and then effortlessly hiked them high into the air, the boy’s twisting and turning body pulled back and lifted off the apron so only his chest and shoulders rested on it, and the whipping master pounded the elevated backside, whistling or singing to himself as before. How he seemed to love it. I’d never thought before about these men who did nothing day in and day out but paddle and spank. He seemed a paragon of his profession. His blue eyes positively twinkled beneath his heavy gray brows.

At last he drew a breath and sat back. The boy’s sobs were loud though his lips were shut.

“Now, do I give the best spanking in this village, or do I not?” asked the whipping master, rubbing the boy’s pretty hair with his hand. “Come on, speak up, Valentine, I’m not hearing anything. I’m going to spank you again, if you don’t speak up.”

“Yes, sir,” sobbed the boy but his voice was low and restrained and had dignity to it. “The best, sir, and please, sir, spank me as you please, sir.”

More paddling on the bottom now swinging in the air. The powerful groom had no problem holding the boy’s ankles, and the boy’s hands never left his genitals nor tried to cover them up. His cock was red and gleaming. I could see the tip of it lathering. Oh, how I knew that desperation.

I knew it now.

And as if Alexi were reading my mind as surely as Lady Eva had, he said:

“Are you nearly coming under those fancy Russian clothes?”

“How about you?” I asked.

“Just about!”

We must have been there an hour.

Finally it was full dark and I’d seen five slaves, three boys and two girls, very efficiently and effectively spanked.

One of the girls, a precious nymph with black curls, had obviously come while being spanked, but it didn’t seem the great cheerful Lord of the Paddle knew it. The groom certainly knew it as he saw her red face and her stuttering spasms. I saw him smile.

The patrons had seen it and they began to scold and point and shake their heads and wag their fingers.

And so she was forced to make the round of the Punishment Shop on her knees after—the groom holding her wrists high—touching her tender little moist pelt to each boot in so far as she could squat that low, and begging pardon for her indulgence of those who scarcely took the time to wiggle her chin or tousle her curls. Many gentlemen and even ladies extended their boots or shoes for her to touch them with her moist sex, and patted her on the head forgivingly.

I’d never been made to do this. I’d never come while being paddled in this shop.

Patrons filled a little pouch hanging around her neck for another spanking.