“That would be quite tasty,” said the Queen. “Who’s to say I cannot have a male for such a thing?”

“No one,” said the King. “But I do want to play with this boy for a while. Can we take the matter slowly?”

“Of course,” said the Queen. “But couldn’t we have him trained in your stables?”

“Your Majesty, I can, of course,” said Lady Eva, “but why not in your very own stable, right with the girl ponies? Bring the few males, as you select them, into your stable to be trained. Every groom you have knows how to train both male and female ponies.”

“I don’t see why not,” said the Queen. “But he is a very sturdy and strong boy, and I thought the boy ponies had harsher training.”

“Share him with me,” said the King. “Put him in with the males for now. Male ponies have a special camaraderie. Let him train with my men, with César and Bastian and Caspian. I’m thinking this boy is strong enough to pull even my solitary chariot. I’ll have him trained and then sent to you ready for your equipage. After he’s learned with my men, been worked with my men, he can handle your little chariot beautifully.”

“Very well,” said the Queen, “that’s fine, but tonight at supper in the garden, he will be my footstool. And Brenn, this is a simple task for a young man who is inherently well behaved. You’ll kneel before my chair, and I assure you, my feet are not heavy.”

The King laughed. “He’ll do well. But first I think I’ll drain the cup so that he doesn’t spill over.”

Suddenly his powerful arm swung round in front of me and he hoisted me in the air as easily as the strong attendant had done it, flung me over his shoulder and carried me from the room, leaving the women laughing together.

I was only dangling that way for a split second. He slammed a door behind him and lifted me and put me on a broad oak sideboard facing him.

“Look at me, little Pan,” he said.

I did. I looked at a face I’d heard described a thousand times, and none of those paeans touched it. He had huge glittering brown eyes, crinkled at the corners, and a brilliant generous smile. His skin was dark and lustrous and his hair a tangled raiment of brown waves.

“Oh, you are so pretty!” he said.

“Yes, sire,” I whispered. There was a lump in my throat.

He laughed.

“Spread your legs wide. I want that cock for my supper!”

He grabbed at my nipples with both his hands pushing me back against the wall and then he descended on my cock as I gasped and shut my eyes.

His tight lips worked it hard, stroking it back and forth, back and forth, his tongue licking at the tip. I thought I would cry out in ecstasy. His fingers ground at my nipples.

I felt nothing, knew nothing, but this searing, blinding pleasure.

Surely he would turn away when I had to come. I sought respectfully as I could to pull loose, to warn him, moaning frantically, but he clutched my backside, lifting it off the wood, and held me fast to his mouth. It is the King!

When I came I let out a series of choking sobs. I couldn’t stop myself.

I felt myself dropped down again on the wood, and a large hand steadying my chest.

“Cupid’s nectar,” he said. Then he moved away.

In a blur, I saw the ceiling, the burning candles of the room, and then his figure again looming before me. He was drinking from a goblet thirstily, and I could smell the wine.

A low laugh came out of him. He seemed enormous, larger than any man I’d ever beheld, and I felt small, deliciously weak! Of course I myself was a big man and he was tall though not a giant. But in my mind he appeared to grow and I to shrink immeasurably.

I melted. I dissolved. I wasn’t there. Yet I had never been more present anywhere else in all my existence, seated naked on this broad sideboard, my sore bottom aching on the wood and my cock limp and my soul sunk down into some deep stratum of quiet beyond language.

I dared not look at his face. I closed my eyes again.

The kingdom. Bellavalten!

Oh, Sybil, I pray your hours have been as eventful and as glorious as mine have been!

“Tell you what, you tasty little sausage, you may be headed to the stables all right, but not for a few nights, not till Queen Beauty and I have had some fun with you.”

He stared at my cock. It was already hard again.

vi

It was full night but the gardens were as brightly lighted as if it were day. The roar of voices was all around me, with music rising in waves above it.

The Queen led me on a scarlet leather leash by a scarlet collar around my neck. She’d combed my hair herself with the gentlest fingers, and she pulled me along on my hands and knees beside her skirts. I was not to lift my head on any account, or a wider collar would be used for me that didn’t allow me to lift my head, and she didn’t want for that to happen.

On and on we walked over the great floor of carpets and soft grass and carpets once more. I glimpsed figures dancing, heard the quick rhythm of drums or tambourines. And everywhere great shining explosions of laughter and excited conversation.

Again and again, people to the right and left bowed to the Queen: “Your Majesty!” The hushed and reverent voices hurled their whispers at her feet.

I couldn’t bear to think of what they saw if they looked at me, if they even noticed me at all, but then my heart would swell with pride. She had chosen me for this, for her pet, to be led like her favored puppy alongside of her. She had chosen me and on my very first night in the kingdom!

Now and then a paddle smacked my bottom hard. But it was not the Queen who did this, but Lady Eva. “Straight back now, Brenn,” she said. “That’s it. Now, look up just a little, as you must climb this step onto the dais and you must do it gracefully. The entire Court is watching you, young man.”

I obeyed.

“Under the table now, that’s it,” said Lady Eva. “And you’re to kneel there.”

“Ah yes, and now you may crouch down, and rest back on your heels and lower your shoulders and rest on your forearms,” said the Queen. “And put your head down, yes, that’s very nice. And don’t move and don’t speak. You might want to sleep now. You can be a good little footstool and still sleep. But when I prod that pretty cock with my slipper, I want to feel it wake.”

I obeyed. The carpet under my feet was soft, and the light poured gently through the thin linen and silk that draped the table, making a long golden corridor here in which I knelt.

Right in front of me, I saw another slave being put into place in the very same manner, but he was large boned and had balls even bigger than mine. He settled down just as I had done, and I saw a man’s fancy boot plant itself on his back.

A gush of silent tears came out of me. I had never been more devoid of tension, more limp, except for my cock of course.

The voices of the party were muted, but I could hear the Queen above me chatting with Lady Eva. Her slippered foot suddenly rested, small and light, on my back.

I lay still, my heart thudding in my ears, my cock, which had been hard all this while, was softening a little, and I became sleepy, wondering if I could hold my position perfectly while I dozed.

Then a delicate hand appeared before me with a bit of fruit, and I heard the Queen speak. “Here, precious Brenn, here.”

I hadn’t eaten since morning, and I licked the bits of fruit from her beautiful and graceful fingers.

I was dozing when a dish with more fruit was given to me to eat. It contained a thick sweet meat sauce and bits of meat that were savory and delicious.

“No hands, darling,” she said. “You eat like a good little slave, like a good little puppy dog.”

I would have done anything she said, any way she said to do it. I had obeyed all the others to be admitted, to be received. I obeyed her because I loved her, because every word from her thrilled me. And when I heard the King’s deep voice above, when I heard him talking to her and laughing in that natural spontaneous way of his, I knew I loved him too. And to think I would become their pony, a pony for Her Majesty and a pony for His Majesty. I had no real idea what it meant to be a pony, but only that I would be theirs, their very own, and I would do all in my power to please them forever.

Ah, Beauty’s Kingdom. I have made it so far. I am at home. I am the pet of the Sleeping Beauty herself. I am here. And nothing beyond this kingdom any longer matters at all.

Hours passed. I slept. The dish was gone. Now and then both the Queen’s feet rested on my back, sometimes only one.

Then I was waked and pulled by my leash, and once again walking as I had before only now the garden seemed livelier than ever.

I felt my cock stirring again, getting hard.

I heard Lady Eva say, “Yes, perfect.” And something feathery touched my cock, and I jumped. “He’s a natural,” she said. “Perfect attitude, perfect responses.”

This seemed a dream of uncommonly vivid intensity, something too palpably exciting to be mere real life.

It was not easy to move up the stone stairs on hands and knees and Lady Eva corrected me several times on grace.

In the Queen’s parlor again, I was led to the side of Lady Eva’s chair.

“Now, spank that luscious little bottom,” said the Queen. “I want to see it bright red.”

What had I done! But then I realized I’d done nothing! I was being enjoyed, not punished.