Yet never had I felt so naked, so utterly the slave as in those moments when I appeared to be in rebellion.

Every leaf, every tall blade of grass stroked my exposed flesh. A new shame astonished me as I roamed beneath the dark trees, creeping past the watchtowers of the village.

When night came on, I felt that my nude skin was glowing like a light, that the forest would not conceal me. I belonged to the intricate world of power and submission and had tried wrongly to steal away from its obligations. And the forest knew it. Brambles scratched my calves. My c**k hardened at the slightest sound in the brush.

And o, the final horror and thrill of capture, as the soldiers spotted me in the dark and drove me onward with shouts until they had me surrounded.

Rude hands grabbed at my arms and legs. I was carried low to the ground by four of the men, my head hanging and my limbs outstretched, merely an animal who had given good sport, brought into the torchlit camp amid cheers and hoots and laughter.

And in the blazing moment of inescapable justice, everything was further clarified. I was no high-born Prince anymore. I was a stubborn and lowly thing to be whipped and raped repeatedly by the spirited soldiers until the Captain of the Guard appeared and ordered me bound to the thick wooden Punishment Cross.

And it was during that ordeal that I had again seen Princess Beauty. She had already been sent down to the village and chosen by the Captain of the Guard as his little plaything. Kneeling in the dirt of the camp, she was the only woman there, her fresh pink and milk-white skin all the more delectable for the dust clinging to it. She had magnified all that happened to me with her intense gaze.

And no wonder I still fascinated her: I was a true fugitive, and the only one of us in the Sultan's ship who had earned the Punishment Cross.

In earlier castle days, I had glimpsed such mounted runaways myself. I had seen them put in the cart to be taken to the village, their legs spread wide on the crossbar, their heads bent back over the top of the cross so that they looked straight up into the sky, mouths stretched by the black leather band that held their heads in this position. I had been terrified for them, marveling that even in this disgrace their cocks were hard as the wood to which their bodies were tethered.

And then I was the condemned one. I had passed into the tableau to be bound in the same excruciating fashion, eyes heavenward, my arms doubled behind the rough stake, my open thighs stretched wide and aching, my c**k as hard as any I'd ever beheld.

And Beauty was but one of a thousand witnesses.

Through the village streets I was paraded to the slow beat of the drum for common crowds that I could hear and not see, each turn of the cart's wheels jarring the wooden phallus implanted in my backside.

It had been as delicious as it was extreme, the greatest of all degradations. I had felt myself luxuriating in it even as the Captain of the Guard whipped my bare chest, my open legs, my naked belly. And how divinely easy it had been to plead through uncontrollable groans and undulations, knowing full well that I would never be heeded. How it had titillated my soul to know there was not the slightest hope of mercy for me.

Yes, in those moments, I had known the full power of my captors, but I had also known my own power--that we who are bereft of all privileges may yet goad and guide our punishers into new realms of heat and loving attentiveness.

There was no desire to please now, no passion to accomplish. Only divine and anguished abandon. l had rocked my bu**ocks shamelessly on the phallus that jutted into me from the cross, receiving the quick blows of the Captain's leather strap like kisses. I had struggled and wept to my heart's content without a particle of dignity.

The only flaw in the magnificent scheme, I suppose, was that I could not see my tormentors unless they stood directly above me, which only happened rarely.

And at night, when I was mounted high in the village square, and I could hear them gathered on the platform below me--feel them pinching my sore backside, spanking my cock--I wished I could see the contempt and humor on their faces, their utter superiority to the lowest of the low which I had become.

I liked being condemned. I liked being this grim and frightening exhibit of folly and suffering, even as I quaked at the sounds that signaled a fresh whipping, as the tears spilled uncontrollably down my face.

It was infinitely richer than being the scarlet-faced and trembling plaything of Lady Elvera. Finer even than the sweet sport of mounting Princesses in the garden.

And finally, there were special rewards for the painful angle of my vision as well. The young soldier, after whipping me at the stroke of nine o'clock, had mounted the ladder beside me, and looked down into my eyes, and kissed my gagged mouth.

I had been unable to show how much I adored him, unable even to close my lips around the thick band of leather that gagged me and held my head in place. But he had clasped my chin and sucked on my upper lip, then my lower lip, running his tongue into my mouth under the leather, and then he promised me in a whisper that I should be whipped again very well at midnight; he would see to it himself. He liked the task of whipping bad slaves.

"You've a good tapestry of pink stripes on your chest and belly," he said. "But you're going to be even prettier. And then there is the Public Turntable for you at sunup, when you'll be unbound and made to kneel over, and the village Whipping Master will do his work on you for the morning crowd. How they will love it, a big strong Prince such as you."

Again he kissed me, sucking on my lower lip, running his tongue along my teeth. I had heaved against the wood, against my bonds, my c**k a shaft of exquisite hunger.

I had tried in every unspoken way known to me to show my love for him, his words, his affection.

How strange it all was, that he might not understand it. But it didn't matter. It didn't matter if I was gagged forever, and could never tell anyone. What mattered was that I had found my perfect place and must never rise above it. I must be the emblem of the worst punishment. If only my sore cock, my swollen cock, could know a moment's respite, just a moment's....

And, as if reading my thoughts, he had said:

"Now I have a little gift for you. We want to keep that handsome organ in good form after all, and that is not done through laziness." And I heard near him a woman's laughter. "She's one of the lovelier village girls," he said, brushing my hair out of my eyes. "Would you like to have a good look at her first?"

Oooh, yes, I tried to answer. And I saw her face above me--bouncing red curls, sweet blue eyes, blushing cheeks, and lips that came down to kiss me.

"See how pretty she is?" he asked in my ear. And to her he said: "You may go ahead, dearest."