Mistress Lockley released the cat. It was gone, out of sight. And Beauty felt the straps on her wrists released, and then the straps on her ankles.

She lay shuddering, resisting with all her will the desire to close her legs, to turn over on the board, hugging her br**sts with one hand while with the other she touched her burning sex in an orgy of private pleasure.

There would be no such mercy for her.

"Get down on your hands and knees," said Mistress Lockley. "I think you're finally ready for the paddle."

Beauty climbed to the floor.

And in confusion she turned to hurry after the little boots that were already far away as they clicked sharply out of the kitchen.

The movement of her legs as she crawled only intensified the craving in her.

And when they reached the counter in the front room of the Inn, she climbed up at once to the snap of Mistress Lockley's fingers.

People were passing back and forth in the square; they chatted at the rim of the well. Two village girls came in with a cheerful hello to Mistress Lockley as they proceeded past her into the kitchen.

Beauty lay shuddering, her little cries like stutters, her chin propped, her bu**ocks waiting for the paddle.

"You remember I told you I'd cook your bu**ocks for breakfast!" Mistress Lockley said in that cold, toneless voice.

"Yes, Mistress!" Beauty sobbed.

"No words from you now. Only the nod of that head!"

Beauty nodded, despite her propped head, furiously.

Her sore br**sts were pure warmth against the wood, her sex dripping. The tension was unbearable.

"You've been well sauced in your own juices," Mistress Lockley asked, "now, haven't you?"

Beauty gave forth a loud whimpering wail, not knowing how to answer.

Mistress Lockley's hand kneaded her bu**ocks hard, plumped them as she had done the br**sts.

And then they came, the hard punishing spanks, and Beauty bounced and writhed and cried behind her teeth as if she had never known resistance, dignity. Anything to please this dreadful, cold, uncompromising Mistress, anything to make her know Beauty would be good, she wasn't a bad girl, she had been all wrong. And Tristan had warned her. The spanking went on and on, truly chastising her.

"Is that hot enough, is that well done enough?!" the

Mistress demanded, driving the paddle ever faster and faster. She stopped and laid her cool open

hand on the blazing skin.

"Yes, I think we have a nice well-done little Princess!"

And she flailed again, Beauty's sobs pouring as if they had been purged out of her.

And the thought that she must wait till evening, wait for the Captain before her tormented sex would know its release, brought the sobs out of her in almost luscious abandon.

It was over. The cracks still rang in her ears. She could still feel the paddle as if in a dream. And her sex was like a hollow chamber in which all the pleasures she had known left their loud, reverberating echo. And it would be hours and hours before the Captain came. Hours and hours . . .

"Get up and get down on your knees," Mistress Lockley had just said. Why was she hesitating?

She dropped to the floor and pressed her lips frantically to Mistress Lockley's boots, kissing the sharp little points of the toes, the shapely little ankles showing beneath the fine casing of leather. She felt Mistress Lockley's petticoats on her damp forehead and on the hair, and her kisses became all the more fervent.

"Now you'll work to clean this Inn from top to bottom," Mistress Lockley said, "and you'll keep your legs wide apart as you do it." Beauty nodded.

Mistress Lockley walked away from her towards the Inn door. "Where are my other lovelies?" she murmured crossly under her breath. "The Punishment Shop takes forever."

Beauty knelt looking at Mistress Lockley's fine little figure against the light of the door, the tiny waist so flattered by the white band and sash of the apron. Beauty sniffled. "Tristan, you were

right," she thought. "It's hard to be bad all the time." And she wiped her nose on the back of her hand silently.

The big white slinky cat came round, padding into view only inches from Beauty. And she shrank back, biting her lip again, and then she covered her head with her arms, because Mistress Lockley was just idly leaning on the Inn door, and the great furry cat was coming closer and closer.

CONVERSATION WITH PRINCE RICHARD

It was late afternoon. Beauty lay on the cool grass with the other slaves, stirred only now and then by the prodding stick of one of the kitchen girls, who forced her legs apart roughly. Yes, she must not press her legs together, she thought drowsily. The day's work had exhausted her. She had dropped a handful of pewter spoons and been chained upside down to the kitchen wall for an hour. On all fours, she had carried the heavy laundry baskets on her back to the clotheslines and knelt still while the village girls, hanging up the sheets, chatted around her. She had scrubbed and cleaned and polished, and been paddled at every evidence of clumsiness or hesitation. And kneeling, she had lapped her dinner from the same big dish as the other slaves, silently thankful for the cool spring water that followed.

Now it was time to sleep, and she had been dozing, more or less, for over an hour.

But very slowly, she realized that no one was about. She was alone with the sleeping slaves, and she saw that the beautiful red-haired Prince was lying opposite her, his cheek against his hand, looking at her.

He was the one she had seen the night before kissing the soldier as he sat on the soldier's lap. He smiled now and with his right fingers blew a little kiss to Beauty.

"What did Mistress Lockley do to you this morning?" he whispered.

Beauty flushed.

He reached over and covered her hand with his. "It's all right," he whispered. "We love going to the Punishment Shop." He said. And he laughed under his breath.

"How long have you been here?" she asked. He was even more beautiful than Prince Roger. She had seen no slave at the castle who was any more aristocratic. The features of his face were strong like Tristan's features, but he had a smaller build and was more boyish.

"I was sent down from the castle a year ago. My name is Prince Richard. I was at the castle for six months until I was declared incorrigible."

"But why were you so bad?" Beauty asked. "Was it deliberate?"

"Not at all," he said. "I tried to obey, but I would panic and run into the corner. Or I simply could not perform a task for the shame and humiliation I felt. I couldn't command myself. I was passionate as you are passionate. Every paddle and c**k and lovely lady's hand that touched me elicited some mortifying display of uncontrollable pleasure. But I couldn't obey. And so I was auctioned off for a full year to be tamed here."