She was placed on her knees right before Beauty, her black hair falling down in front of her face, her dark br**sts heaving.

"Petulance, my Lord," said the Page rather wearily. "She was to be quarry in the Hunt in the Maze when she refused to give her Lords and Ladies good sport. The usual nonsense."

Princess Lizetta tossed her black hair over her shoulder and let out a little contemptuous growl from behind the gag, which astonished Beauty.

"Ah, and impudence as well," said Lord Gregory. He reached down and lifted her chin. Her dark eyes evinced nothing but anger as she looked up at him and she turned her head so sharply that she was soon free of him.

The page gave her several hard spanks but she showed no contrition. Her little bu**ocks looked hard in fact.

"Double her, for punishment," said Lord Gregory. "I think a real punishment is in order."

Princess Lizetta gave several high-pitched groans. They seemed both anger and protest. She seemed not to have bargained for this, and as she was carried ahead of Beauty and Lord Gregory into the Hall of Punishments, the Pages quickly affixed leather cuffs to her wrists and ankles, each cuff with a heavy metal hook imbedded in it.

Now she was raised, struggling, to a great low beam that spanned the room, her wrists hung from a hook above her head and then her legs brought straight up in front of her so that her ankles were fixed to the same hook. She was, in fact, bent double. Her head was then forced between her calves, so that Beauty could see her face clearly. And a leather strap was bound around her, securely pressing her upturned legs against her torso.

But the most cruel and frightening aspect of it for Beauty was the exposure of the Princess's secret parts, for she was hung so that anyone could see her full sex with its pink lips and its dark hair even to the tiny brown orifice between her bu**ocks. And all this just below her scarlet face. Beauty could imagine no worse exposure and she looked down timidly, glancing up again and again to the girl whose suspended body moved slightly as with a current in the air, the leather links at her wrists and ankles creaking.

But she was not alone. Beauty realized that only yards away, other doubled bodies hung from the same beam just as helplessly.

Princess Lizetta's face remained colored with rage, but she had quieted somewhat and now she turned and tried to conceal her expression against her leg, but the Page nearby adjusted her face forward.

Quickly Beauty looked at the others.

Not very far to the right a young man was mounted in the very same fashion. He appeared very young, no more than sixteen at best, and he was blond with curly hair, and his pubic hair was slightly reddish. His organ was erect, its tip glossy, and there exposed to all the world was his scrotum and again the tiny opening of his anus.

There were more of them, another young Princess and another Prince, but these first two engaged Beauty completely.

The blond Prince was moaning painfully. His eyes were dry, but he appeared to struggle, to shift as he hung from the black leather manacles, and he caused his body to turn a little to the left as he did so.

A young man, meantime, looking somewhat more impressive than the Pages, and differently costumed in dark blue velvet, came down the line of doubled and manacled slaves and appeared to inspect each face and each configuration of mercilessly exposed organs.

He smoothed back the hair from the young Prince's forehead. The young Prince moaned. It seemed he tried to thrust himself forward, and this man in blue velvet stroked the Prince's penis causing the Prince to main all the louder and more with the sound of one imploring.

Beauty bent her head but she continued to watch the man in velvet as he approached the Princess Lizetta.

"Stubborn one, most difficult," he said to Lord Gregory.

"A day and night of punishment will subdue her," Lord Gregory answered. And Beauty was shocked to think of being exposed for so long, and so uncomfortably. She knew at once she would do anything to prevent this punishment, yet she had the terrible fear that despite all her efforts it might befall her. She at once imagined herself hung in this position, and she let out a little gasp, though she pressed her lips together to stop it.

But to her amazement, the man in velvet had begun to stroke Princess Lizetta's sex with a small instrument that was, as so much here, covered in smooth black leather. This was a three-pronged rod that somewhat resembled a hand, and as soon as he teased the helpless Princess, she began to struggle in her bonds.

Beauty understood at once what was happening. The Princess's pink sex, terrifying to Beauty as it hung so unprotected, appeared to swell, to ripen. Beauty could see tiny droplets of moisture appear on it.

And even as she watched, she felt her own sex ripening in this same manner. She felt the hard plaster that had been placed over the kernel of feeling there, and it seemed to do nothing to prevent the increased throbbing.

As soon as the helpless Princess had been so awakened, the man in velvet left her with an approving smile, and continued his movement back down the row of slaves, stopping again to tease and torment the young blond-haired Prince who without pride or dignity pleaded from behind his leather bone gag.

The victim beside him, another Princess, was even more abandoned in her wordless entreaties for satisfaction. Her sex was small, thick lipped, a mouth amid a thicket of brown curls, and she twisted her entire body struggling to gain some greater contact from the Lord in velvet who left her now to tease and torment yet another.

Lord Gregory snapped his fingers.

Beauty went down on her hands and knees again and followed him.

"Need I tell you that you are well-suited for that sort of punishment, Princess?" he asked.

"No, my Lord," Beauty whispered. She wondered if it was within his power to punish her this way for nothing. She longed for the Prince, and for the time when he alone had power over her. She could think of nothing but the Prince, and why had she ever displeased him by looking at Prince Alexi? Yet she had only to think of Prince Alexi and she was pitched into helpless misery. But if she could be in the Prince's arms, she would think of no one but him. She craved his tender punishment.

"Yes, my dear, you would speak?" Lord Gregory asked, but there was something ruthless in his tone.

"Only tell me how to obey, my Lord, how to please, how to avoid this discipline."

"To begin with, my precious," he said angrily, "stop admiring the male slaves so very much, staring at them at every opportunity. Don't revel so much in all I show you to frighten you!"

Beauty gasped.

"And never, never again think of Prince Alexi."