"My darling, you have a dignity about you that shields you from me, much like your lovely golden hair shrouds you and shields you. Now I want you to surrender to me. You'll see, and you'll be very surprised that you wept when I first suggested it."

The Prince bent over her. He parted her legs. He could see the battle she fought not to cover herself or turn away from him. He stroked her thighs. Then with his finger and thumb, he reached into the silky damp hair itself and felt those tender little lips and forced them very wide open.

Beauty gave a terrible shudder. With his left hand he covered her mouth, and behind his hand she cried softly. It seemed easier for him with him covering her mouth and that was all right for now, he thought. She shall be taught everything in time.

And with his right fingers, he found that tiny nodule of flesh between her tender nether lips and he worked it back and forth until she raised her hips, arching her back, in spite of herself. Her little face under his hand was the picture of distress. He smiled to himself.

But even as he smiled, he felt the hot fluid between her legs for the first time, the real fluid, which had not come before with her innocent blood. "That's it, that's it, my darling," he said. "And you mustn't resist your Lord and master, hmmmm?"

Now he opened his clothing and took out his hard, eager sex, and mounting her he let it rest against her thigh as he continued to stroke her and work her.

She was twisting from one side to the other, her hands gathering up the soft sheets at her sides into knots, and it seemed her whole body grew pink, and the ni**les of her br**sts looked as hard as if they were tiny stones. He could not resist them.

He bit at them with his teeth, playfully, not hurting her. He licked them with his tongue, and then he licked her sex, too, and as she struggled, and blushed and moaned beneath him, he mounted her, slowly.

Again she arched her back. Her br**sts were suffused with red. And as he drove his organ into her, he felt her shudder violently with unwilling pleasure.

An awful cry was muffled by the hand over her mouth; she was shuddering so violently it seemed she all by lifted him on top of her.

And then she lay still, moist, pink, with her eyes closed, breathing deeply as the tears flowed silently.

"That was lovely, my darling," he said. "Open your eyes."

She did it timidly.

But then she lay looking up at him.

"This has been so hard for you," he whispered. "You could not even imagine these things happening to you. And you are red with shame, and shaking with fear, and you believe perhaps it's one of the dreams you dreamed in your hundred years. But it's real, Beauty," he said. "And it is only the beginning! You think I've made you my Princess. But I've only started. The day will come my Princess. But I've only started. The day will come when you can see nothing but me as if I were the sun and the moon, when I mean all to you, food, drink, the air you breathe. Then you will truly be mine, and these first lessons...and pleasures..." he smiled, "will seem like nothing."

He bent over her. She lay so very still, gazing up at him.

"How kiss me," he commanded. "And I mean, really...kiss me."

Chapter 3

THE JOURNEY AND THE PUNISHMENT AT THE INN

THE NEXT morning all the Court was gathered in the Great Hall to see the Prince off, and all of the Court, including the grateful King and Queen, stood with their eyes down, bowing from the waist as the Prince came down the steps with the naked Beauty walking behind him. He had commanded her to clasp her hands on the back of her neck beneath her hair, and to walk just a little to his right so that he might see her in the corner of his eye. And she obeyed, her bare feet making not the slightest sound on the worn stone steps as she followed him.

"Dear Prince," said the Queen, when he reached the great front door and saw that his soldiers stood mounted on the drawbridge, "we are in your eternal debt, but she is our only daughter."

The Prince turned to look at her. She was yet beautiful, though more than twice Beauty's age, and he wondered if she too had served his great-grandfather.

"How can you question me?" the Prince asked patiently. "I have restored your Kingdom, and you know full well if you remember anything of the ways of my land, that Beauty will be much enhanced by her service there."

Then the telltale blush came to the Queen as it had to the King before, and she bowed her head in acceptance.

"But surely you will allow Beauty some clothing," she whispered, "at least until she reaches the border of your Kingdom."

"All those towns between here and my Kingdom have owed their allegiance to us for a century. And in each I will proclaim your restoration and new dominion. Can you ask for more than that? The spring is warm already; Beauty shall suffer no ill effects from serving me immediately."

"Forgive us, your Highness," the King hastened to say. "But is it the same in this age? Beauty's servitude will not be forever?"

"It is the same now as it was always. Beauty will be returned in time. And she shall be greatly enhanced in wisdom and beauty. Now, tell her to obey as your parents commanded you to obey when you were sent to us."

"The Prince speaks the truth, Beauty," the King said in a low voice, still unwilling to look at his daughter. "Obey him. Obey the Queen. And though you find your servitude surprising and difficult at times, be confident you will return, as he says, greatly changed for the better."

The Prince smiled.

The horses were restless on the drawbridge. The Prince's charger, a black stallion, was particularly hard to restrain, so the Prince, bidding them all farewell again, turned and picked up Beauty.

He heaved her easily over his right shoulder, clasping her ankles to his waist, and heard her cry out softly as she fell over his back. He could see her long hair sweep the ground just before he mounted the stallion.

All the soldiers fell into place behind him.

He rode into the forest.

The sun spilled down in glorious rays through the heavy green leaves, the sky now brilliant and blue overhead only to vanish in a shifting green-tinted light as the Prince rode on at the head of his soldiers, humming to himself, and now and then singing.

Beauty's lithe, warm body swayed slightly over his shoulder. He could feel her trembling, and he understood her agitation. Her naked bu**ocks were still red from the spanking he had given her, and he could well imagine the succulent vision she was to the men who rode after him.

As he walked his horse through a dense glade where the fallen leaves were thick and red and brown beneath him, the Prince tied the rein on his saddle, and with his left hand felt the soft hairy little pelt between Beauty's legs, and leaned his face against her warm hip, kissing it gently.