She rose at the signal and slipped away.

“To refresh myself, my lord,” she said. “I’ll be back momentarily. And I want to see to the gilded maiden, that all is as I want it to be.”

She and Rosalynd rushed through the shifting crowds, Rosalynd leading the way, clasping Beauty’s hand tight as Beauty struggled to keep up with her.

There before them stood the white tent, on the soft green grass beyond the Bridle Path.

They crossed the beaten earth where so many slaves ran to the tune of paddles every evening but this evening.

And slipping inside, Beauty stopped to catch her breath. For a moment her heart beat too fast, and she knew fear, a new and delicious fear that she had not known in many years, a fear that brought the color to her cheeks and made her smile to herself before she turned to take the measure of her surroundings.

There lay the great wooden platter, wondrously wrought with hammered gold leaf, and on it the narrow silken bed on which the maiden would lie—the whole resting on a bier ready to be carried to the ceremonial dais.

Six grooms with gilded masks stood ready to carry the bier when it was ready.

Another small cluster of grooms with the gold paint and oil and other adornments waited to go to work. Elena stood by with Alexi and with Dmitri, and there quite alone it seemed was Beauty’s beloved naked slave Becca.

Becca’s gorgeous flaxen hair had been coiffed exactly like that of Beauty tonight, with ivory combs and opals and pearls, and she stared at Beauty with soft blue eyes, a smile on her coral lips, waiting. How seductive she appeared in her nudity with such elaborately dressed hair.

For a moment, Beauty only gazed at her, and the throbbing music rose in her ears, the distant uneven chorus of song and laughter.

Very well, thought Beauty. I am going through with it!

Quickly she commenced to remove her violet-and-silver gown, and at once Rosalynd and Elena stepped up to help her with its many fastenings.

“Come here, Becca,” said the Queen, and the girl hurried to stand before her. At once the gown was put over Becca’s head and pulled and fastened to fit her easily if not perfectly. Beauty kicked off her slippers and removed her mask and Becca received the mask as a groom helped her into the discarded slippers.

Now the mask was in place and Becca stood before Beauty, garbed as Beauty had been garbed, coiffed as Beauty had been coiffed, and masked as Beauty had been masked.

“Perfect!” said Rosalynd with a long sigh. “Utterly perfect.”

“Now remember, don’t attempt to imitate my voice,” said Beauty. “You won’t fool him. Simply take your place beside him and smile. You will do this just as the bier is being brought in and there won’t be time for talk anyway.”

Becca nodded.

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“She could fool anyone!” said Dmitri.

Becca moved back to the far corner of the tent, her disguise complete, and she waited.

Only now did Beauty realize that she stood utterly naked and barefoot before her closest friends, her privy council, her most beloved supporters.

“Quick, we should hurry, lest someone come to see if we’re delayed,” said Alexi, taking Beauty’s hand. He helped her to the long hard gold platter.

Four of the grooms surrounded her and began to rub the gold-pigmented oil into her skin. Another groom began to paint her lips gold and her eyelids and her nipples.

Beauty closed her eyes. There came back to her the sweetest memory of that long-ago night in the hold of the Sultan’s ship when other attendants had performed these same ministrations so reverently. She felt the pins and combs being drawn out of her hair, and the hands busily working on her most secret parts, fingers rubbing the gold into her pubic hair, and into the crevice of her bottom.

A great throbbing relief weakened her all over and she felt every fiber of her naked skin, every fiber of her naked soul once more as she’d felt it long ago, for so many days and nights.

At last it was done. She was covered in gold as she had been once before on that strange night—and Alexi and Dmitri lifted her along with the grooms as others gently laid out the bed of silken cushions beneath her. Rosalynd gathered up her hair. Elena began to paint her toenails.

Now came the final preparations. Dmitri lifted the glistening handfuls of fruit, quartered melons, red cherries, bits of ripe apple, soft slices of fresh peach and plum, and began to put these inside of her. Her sex awakened and throbbed as the fruit was pushed into her. Her clitoris hardened and she closed her eyes for one precious moment, fighting the rising orgasm that threatened to overcome her.

The grooms brushed her hair out over the pillow in waves, sending tingles through her scalp. Alexi held up a glistening date for her to see and then placed it in her navel.

All around her the grooms packed the fresh fruits against her, from her feet to her neck. Garlands of grape leaves were strung through the fruits. Between her legs lay more fruit. She sighed and twisted comfortably on the silk, her vagina deliciously full and gasping, it seemed, gasping as if to devour the fruit inside her.

Dmitri held up the small loose cluster of grapes, such glistening purple grapes, and Beauty opened her mouth to receive it, to hold it with her teeth.

Suddenly it seemed her breasts would burst with the delicious pressure rolling through her, through all her limbs, through her face. Again, she closed her eyes for one vital second.

Then she looked up to see the maiden’s mask before her. It was as she had designed it, a light shield of leather with oval eyes, gilded and painted with bright green leaves and purple grapes like those she held in her teeth.

Carefully Dmitri placed it over her face, smoothing it to fit, and then lifting her head, he ran the strap around it and positioned the jeweled buckle just behind her left ear. Now she gazed out of the almond-shaped eye openings, and all the world seemed a little less clear and she seemed a little more safe, and her heart pounded with renewed excitement.

“You are gorgeous to behold,” said Alexi. She knew he wanted to kiss her painted lips but they were for the King tonight.

What more was there to do—the piling of the platter with more polished fruit, more soft ripe fruit, more leaves.

A silence fell within the tent.

Only the music was audible, the great tantalizing beat of the drums and the high-pitched cry of the horns.

“They are ready.”

Again came the fear, the thrilling fear, so secret and so sharp and so exciting. And there came back again the splendor of that long-ago night and how trusting she’d been to the fire burning inside her. Well, she was trusting now to that fire. And it burned hot, and as she felt the bier lifted, she knew that she was ready.

And now they are carrying me, naked and gilded and prepared, out under the stars and through the gardens of my own kingdom. And I am queen and slave in one. I am the ruler who has ordained these things, and I am the slave, the abject slave, the devoted slave of all my subjects!!

On and on the grooms in their gilded masks moved with the bier. The Princes walked beside her as did her two ladies. And there was Becca, she could see her plainly in Beauty’s raiment, Becca now the perfect image of Beauty.

They had come to the area behind the royal banquet table. She could hear the gasps and exclamations of those who had glanced behind from their chairs above.

“Now go up, my queen,” said Alexi to Becca, “and sit beside your husband and smile and say nothing.”

A signal had been given. Silence. All music had ceased.

Then the drums were beating a cadence, the deep drums, the drums that send their deep-throated voice through your bones.

And as the bier came round in front of the royal banquet table, as Beauty looked up at the masked face of the King smiling down, she heard the horns begin and the lutes with them. It was a rhythm of reverence, of expectation.

The great bier was carried up onto the dais and a great loud exclamation came from the crowd as a body. Beauty did not need to see them as they undoubtedly struggled to see better the great ceremony. A great hush had fallen over the spectators and only the music spoke now for the crowd, only the music announcing a moment of supreme importance.

Beauty turned ever so slightly on the silken pillow. She looked up at the King who had risen to his feet. His stately masked queen was seated to his right, her head turned slightly towards him.

The King stepped up onto the table, and then down onto the planks beneath it and in front of it. He unfastened his great scarlet cloak. And then opened his long tunic and let it fall away from him. His attendants took his boots, and took the ceremonial chains from around his neck, and even the handsome bracelets from his arms as he held out his hands.

And there he stood naked except for the gleaming horned mask, his cock hard and ready.

Down the carpeted steps he came to the dais that held Beauty.

He stood above her gazing down on her, staring down at this masked maiden who she had become, and now the music became rapid, wild, exhorting, and pounding. He dropped down and with his hands caressed Beauty’s breasts and kissed the mouth of her sex, kissed it and began to gnaw at and extract the fruit that filled her.

She felt his tongue against her clitoris again and again as he dragged the juicy dripping fruit from her, until at last his tongue searched the cavity for the very last bits and juices as her desire maddened her and made her toss her head ever so gently, her hands clawing at the silk and the fruit, her eyes closing.