The Captain sat down on the side of the bed, and he put Beauty on his lap, his fingers inspecting her body--her br**sts, her sex, her thighs.

She had to admit to herself that she was soothed by his touch. She leaned against his shoulder, and the feel of his rough beard delighted her, the smell of his leather clothes delighted her. It seemed in his hair she could smell the fresh country winds of Europe, and even the smell of the fresh cut grass in the fields of the village manor houses.

But still she cried. She would never see her beloved Inanna again. And would Inanna remember the lessons Beauty had taught her? Would she find some shared passion with the other women of the harem? Beauty could only hope so. What Beauty herself had learned, of the sweetness and intensity of such love, would always be with her.

Yet even now, in the Captain's arms, she thought of other kinds of love, of Mistress Lockley's rough wooden paddle that had punished her so well in the village, of the Captain's leather strap, and his hard c**k which was pushing against her naked thigh now, the rough cloth of his breeches cruelly imprisoning it. She let her fingers touch it through the cloth. She felt it move, like a being unto itself.

And her ni**les became two stiff little points as she sighed, her mouth opening as she looked up at the Captain. He was smiling and studying her. And he let her kiss the crust of beard on his chin and chew on his lower lip. She squirmed on his lap, pressing her br**sts to his jerkin. His hand moved under her bottom, squeezing the flesh.

"No marks, no welts," he whispered in her ear.

"No, My Lord," she said. Just those delicate little thongs lashing at her. How she hated them. She slipped her arms tightly around his neck, her mouth covering his. She pushed her tongue between his lips.

"And we have become so forward," he said.

"Do you dislike it, My Lord?" she whispered, feeding on his lower lip, licking at his tongue and his teeth as she had done with Inanna.

"No, I can't say that I do," he said. "You don't know how I've missed you." He kissed her hard in response, his large roughened hand rising to squeeze her breast, to pull it towards him.

The sheer size of him aroused her.

"But I want your little bottom nicely pink and warm when I take you," he said.

"Anything to please you, My Lord," she said. "It's been so long. I'm ... I'm a little afraid. I want so to please you."

"Of course you do," he said. He slid his hand between her legs and lifted her by her sex. And her legs felt weak, as if they could not actually support her. Returning to the village was like returning to a dream she could not shake off, could not wake from. She would cry again if she thought too much about it. Lovely Inanna.

But her Captain looked like a golden god to her in the sunlight from the tiny window, his crude-shaven beard glittering in the shadows, his eyes burning in the deep, tanned creases of his handsome face.

As he flung her over his lap, something snapped inside her head, some last little bit of resistance. As his enormous hand closed on her bottom, she rose up to fit herself into it, moaning with the hard pinch that came, the fingers stroking her flesh.

"Too smooth, too fine," he whispered above her. "Don't these little Arabs know how to punish properly?"

And with the first hard wallops, her sex pumped with juices against the Captain's thigh, her heart racing. The spanks echoed loudly in the tiny cabin, her flesh tingling, then burning, then flooded with delicious pain, her tears rising and quickly spilling.

"I am yours, my Lord," she whispered, half in love, half in supplication, the blows coming faster and harder on her bottom. He gathered her chin in his left hand and lifted her head. But he did not stop the punishment. "O, My Lord, I belong to you," she whimpered and cried, and it seemed all the memories of the village came back to her. "I will be yours again, won't I? I beg you!" she cried out.

"Shh, stop your impertinence," he said softly. And she was quickly rewarded with a new volley of hard spanks as she rocked and undulated under them without shame or modulation.

As it went on and on, it seemed the hardest punishment she had ever received. And she bit down on her lip not to beg for mercy. Yet she felt it was what she needed, what she deserved, what was wanted to clear away her doubts and fears.

And when the Captain flung her back on the bed, she was ready for his c**k and lifted her hips to receive it. The small shelf bed seemed to shake under his thrusts. She bounced on the coverlet, her sore bottom slamming against the rough cloth, his weight riding her, crushing her, the c**k stretching her and filling her divinely. Finally she climaxed, screaming against her sealed lips, and in the white-hot flashes of pleasure she saw both the Captain and Inanna. She thought of Inanna's gorgeous br**sts, her wet little vagina; she thought of the Captain's thick organ and his se**n spilling into her with his most violent thrusts; and she was crying for joy and for pain, the Captain's hand over her mouth, muffling her cries, which gave her the freedom to let them go from her whole being.

She lay still under him when it was done, her whole body gasping. And she was slightly dismayed when he lifted her. He was taking off his belt.

"But what have I done, My Lord?" she whispered.

"Nothing, my love. I want that bottom and those legs in good color, as they used to be." He stood her before him as he sat again on the side of the bed, his breeches still open, his c**k still erect.

"O, My Lord," she begged, dissolving in weakness, the aftershocks of the pleasure growing stronger instead of fainter. He was doubling the strap.

"Now, every morning at sea, we will begin with a nice whipping, do you hear me, Princess?"

"Yes, My Lord," she whispered. So it was all as it should be again. So simple. She placed her hands on the back of her neck. And what had she dreamed in the ship before, about finding love? Well, there had been that heavenly taste. And it would come again. For now she had her Captain.

"Spread your legs," he said. "And now I want you to dance as you're whipped. Move those hips!" And the strap came down as she moaned and swung her bottom from side to side, the movement seeming to ease the pain, her sex throbbing. Her heart was gripped with fear and happiness.

It was almost dark. Beauty was lying on the carpet beside Laurent, their heads together on a pillow. The Captain and Nicolas and the others who had helped in the "rescue" had gone to take their evening meal together. The slaves had been fed, and Tristan was asleep in the corner. And so was Lexius. The ship was small and ill-equipped. No cages, no shackles.