i

I would have gone to Bellavalten without Sybil. I had determined to go from the day I’d copied out the Proclamation and read it in the town square. The whole country was talking of King Laurent and Queen Beauty—and that slaves of the new kingdom would be accepted from all ranks, and allowed to offer their vow of allegiance for two or more years to enjoy the pleasures of naked slavery.

My father was secretary to the old duke, and I’d been educated to take his place since I was a small child, to keep the libraries and the archives and to write letters for the family as was required.

Lady Sybil grew up the fifth daughter of the old duke’s eldest son and, with four daughters ahead of her, had little hope of a dowry or even the chance to meet a fine man.

She and I ran in the fields together, and played in the castle gardens and read books together, because nobody much paid attention, with Lady Sybil’s mother dead and my mother busy with three more sons. I taught Sybil to read, and then her father obtained a tutor for her and soon she surpassed me in my Latin.

We remained friends even when her duties as a woman put a great divide between us, with Sybil often coming to the library or archives simply to visit with me. She wouldn’t hear of formal addresses. “I am your Sybil, Brenn,” she whispered to me whenever I bowed or offered her titles.

It was a month after the Proclamation had been posted, and the emissaries of Bellavalten had already left our land with the postulants for pleasure slavery whom they had accepted. I’d seen some of those lovelies with my own eyes as they congregated around the caravan on the edges of town, and they were beautiful creatures indeed and certainly from the lower ranks, as highborn applicants came to the emissaries by night in secret.

I could not get away in time. But soon I was packed and ready to go with everything I possessed—a few changes of clothes, my savings, and my books—in a small bundle that I could carry over my shoulder as I made the long walk to the kingdom.

I was determined to give my life to pleasure slavery. I’d heard all about it years ago from an aunt of Lady Sybil or a cousin, I don’t recall which, who’d told us amazing stories of the kingdom.

“Imagine living naked for three years,” the lady had said without so much as a blush, “and enjoying pleasure every day of one’s life, and sometimes three and four times a day—the sort of pleasure that makes fools of men and women as they pursue it in vain in the shadowy corners of the wide world. Well, there are no shadowy corners in the land of Queen Eleanor.”

Of course the lady had rebelled at first. That was expected of one, she’d admitted with much laughter. “But those were the most vibrant days of my life,” she’d told us.

Over the years I’d heard plenty from others, tales sometimes second- and thirdhand, but all on the same theme.

I knew I was going. And in truth I had little interest in thinking it over. I’d been teased, as soon as the emissaries had arrived to receive slaves, that I was beautiful enough. My older brother had said, “Why don’t you go, Brenn, and then we’d never have to listen to your poetry at dinner again ever!” to which my uncle had added, “As a matter of fact, pretty as you are, you might pass for a boy or a girl slave—a girl slave with a beard, that is!” Roaring laughter.

I’d said nothing.

I left a letter that would be found only after I was well on my way, in an account book that would not be opened for a fortnight.

And on the first morning, Lady Sybil found me walking, already miles from home, my bundle over my back, my face and body pretty much covered by the dark hooded cloak I wore, ignoring her as she rode up, as I had every other rider on the road so far, and she called out:

“Brenn, how could you leave without me?”

I knew her voice instantly, though what I saw on the horse’s back appeared to be a young man under a bright green hooded cloak as concealing as my own, with only some of her curling dark hair revealed by it.

But this was Sybil all right, and I rushed up to her when I realized it.

“Precious, what are you doing here?” I demanded.

“I’m riding to Bellavalten, same as you, to see if I will be accepted.”

“But Sybil—”

“But Sybil what? Get on behind me. How long do you think it will take you to walk the entire way?”

She was right and I was too excited to argue with her, protect her, offer her inducements not to be reckless, all that nonsense. Besides, I knew why I wanted to be a naked slave. Should I insult her with reasons why she shouldn’t?

She was riding a big old horse, a strong mount who could easily carry both of us, and our baggage.

“Brenn, to tell you the truth, I was hoping I would find you. I don’t relish the dangers of the road on my own, though I don’t have a particle of fear when it comes to Beauty’s Kingdom.”

That’s what they were calling it now, more often than Bellavalten. I’d heard that more than once.

“I know, darling. Well, we’re together now and I can handle our arrangements at the inns and pass you off as my servant. No one needs to have a good look at you.”

“I went searching for you to tell you early this morning. And that’s when I was told you’d been seen slipping out while it was still dark with a bundle over your shoulder. I thought to myself: Could this be true? I was ecstatic. I knew where you were headed, and now I’ve no guilt for luring you away with me.”

We laughed together, because we were of the same mind on all of this.

Beauty’s Kingdom.

It was said that Bellavalten meant “beautiful woods” or “beautiful land.” But it was the legend of the Sleeping Beauty that fired the thoughts of those who heard the Proclamation of the new king and queen. All knew she’d been waked by Queen Eleanor’s son from her legendary sleep, and brought to Bellavalten as a naked slave decades ago. If she, the fabled princess of the old tale, would dare to revive the ways of Queen Eleanor and take them to greater heights of renown, well, people were in awe of that. As for King Laurent, he was the most feared monarch in all the world, as far as I knew. And that such a mighty conqueror had claimed the scepter of Bellavalten drew only utterances of awe and admiration.

At the first inn, Sybil’s gold bought far finer accommodations than I’d ever have arranged for myself, and we fell on each other in the big bed with its crackling straw mattress. We’d been sometime lovers all these years, always fearful of discovery. And it was a great treat to us to moan and cry out as we wished now without worry, and I drank too much, and Sybil ate too much, and we finally slept, tumbled against each other like puppies.

We slept that night under her green cloak with its soft lining of miniver. But after that, we chose to save ourselves for Bellavalten.

The day before we reached the gates, we encountered many a traveler headed in the same direction, and many another returning, blaming his rejection on the fact that the kingdom “must not need any more slaves,” but we went on hoping desperately that when we were seen and examined, we’d be accepted.

My main worry was that I was not the pretty boy my uncles always teased me about being. I was a strange combination of a pretty girlish face and overmuscular arms and legs, and though I was tall enough, I was not a giant like the great King Laurent, or even Prince Tristan and other legends of the kingdom.

My mother had said once I had a double dose of the magic juice for a girl and for a boy—with pretty hair and eyelashes and girlish skin, and the limbs of a farm boy. And then there was my beard, which I had to shave twice a day; how did that look on a baby-faced young man? Well, I would know soon enough, I brooded.

Sybil had no such doubts. She was a celebrated beauty, regardless of her poor prospects for a dowry.

We both had the curly black hair common in our land, and blue eyes, and she had voluptuous breasts which drew teasing from girls who envied her. Sybil had a high beautiful forehead and a kissable red mouth, and a long graceful neck and hands that were long and pretty too. I always notice women’s hands. I loved Sybil’s fingers.

As we neared the great walls of Bellavalten and its gates, we saw something of a makeshift fairground all about with tents and booths, and serving boys came up to offer us a drink, but we pressed on to the guards who looked at us expectantly.

“They know already,” said Sybil, leaning forward as I was the one with the reins at present. “See? They know.”

But what did they know?

She had let down her hood a while back and now I did the same and it did seem that the guards liked what they saw because one of them, waving the serving boys away, came up to us.

“We’re here because we want to serve the King and Queen,” I said at once.

“Ah, yes, and in what capacity?” asked the guard.

I think we both blushed, and Sybil laughed.

“What do you think, soldier?” said Sybil. “Do I look like a cook or a maid to you? Does my companion look like a footman?”

“No, my lady,” he said at once, and he bowed. “Ride ahead, please, to the great white tent on the left. And there you’ll find the questioner.”

As we approached the tent, it seemed there was no one before us, and glancing back before dismounting, I saw the soldiers already turning away other travelers.

“Come on, hurry,” said Sybil as I lifted her down. “But first you kiss me and kiss me hard. And promise you’ll wait to see if I’m accepted and I’ll wait to see if you are.”

“No, darling, I won’t have you do that for me,” I said. We walked towards the tent together. “You’re very likely to be accepted and you must go ahead.”

She didn’t reply, but squeezed my hand, and though the guard at the door of the tent tried to stop us, we insisted that we must go in together.

The questioner was polite to a fault, an elderly gentleman with thin white hair and gray eyes who rose at once to greet us. Then he seated himself and began his questions.

“No, we are not brother and sister, no kin at all,” explained Sybil, “but we’ve come together and want to stay together as long as we can. But we’re prepared for what may come. Only give us a chance for a kiss farewell, if it comes to that, that’s all we’re asking.”

“Well, it will certainly come to that, my lady,” said the questioner, his voice polite and gentle, “because you cannot be admitted and trained together. That has never been done, not as far as I know, but let’s see what you can answer now for me and we’ll leave the separating to others.”

We were asked to put off our cloaks, and lay our bundles down which we did. And I realized that two other finely clad gentlemen who stood nearby were taking our measure carefully. Now Sybil looked enticing to me in her boyish leggings and little tunic, and I’m sure they saw the same and this was hardly the first woman who’d come here disguised as a man for obvious reasons.

The questioner began to recite from memory what we knew—that we’d be carefully inspected and tested for service before we would be admitted. That if we were not found fit to be “anointed” slaves for the King and Queen, we might be invited to serve in the kingdom in some other capacity. If we were accepted, we would take the oath for six months, and then, at the end of that period, for two years, and then again perhaps after that for however long we were found to be fit and pleasing . . .

We knew all this. It had been in the Proclamation.

“Yes, I would welcome that chance, for honest employment,” I volunteered. “Though that is not why I’ve come. I am a good scholar, and scribe.”

But Sybil of course stood silent.

“And the paddle and the strap,” said the questioner, “are the emblems of this kingdom, and the discipline of slaves is strict and relentless. You are aware of this?”

We were. It had all been in the Proclamation.

We divulged much else, that we were educated, that we were of age to make the decision to come to Bellavalten on our own, that no one had coerced us, and we gave our first names, and were told no other names were needed.

Then the questioner recited the protections we would enjoy, but we knew all that as well.

Soon two small chests or caskets were brought, and our cloaks and bundles were put into these respectfully and then we were taken through a side flap in the tent, and towards a small gate in the wall where a guard beckoned to us.

“Kiss goodbye now, children,” called out the old questioner. “And don’t dare to inquire after one another.”

And so we did, standing on the beaten green grass under the blue sky, the great wall of Bellavalten seeming to reach above us to the heavens.

ii

In a small chamber, rather well furnished for a gatehouse, it seemed, I was told to sit on a bench and wait, and Sybil went on without me.

I felt a terrible convulsion of fear as I saw the door close behind her. Why had I ever come with her? I mean, why had I not come strictly alone so that only my fate was a burden to my soul now?

An hour dragged by until I was summoned.

I found myself in a spacious but shadowy room, and when the door was shut I was the only one present. I stood on a carpet and there was a small carved table there and no chairs, and a heavy wooden screen before me.

From behind the screen, a masculine voice spoke to me:

“Young man, your deportment is of the utmost importance from this moment forward, do you hear me?”

“Yes, Master,” I said.

“You wish to be a pleasure slave in this kingdom, is that true?”

“Yes, Master.”

“Then remove your clothes, all of them, and your shoes and put them on that table. And do not ask to keep any article of clothing about you.”

I did this immediately, and only as I felt the soothing air on my naked skin did it hit me that at last, at last, I was here and this was truly happening to me. I felt weak suddenly, and my hands trembled. But I was soon completely naked, and very much ashamed of the dust of the road that seemed to cling to my hair and my hands, and I was staring at the floor and struggling to appear collected.

A very long moment passed.

Any spoken word might have been a mercy.

None came, and then a door in the side wall opened and a lovely young woman in a servant’s livery of apron and wimple beckoned for me to come to her. She smiled.

“Don’t worry about your clothes, little boy,” she said in the most cheerful voice. “They’ll be put in your chest with everything else.”

Surely I blushed violently. It certainly felt like it, this pretty girl speaking to me and me being utterly naked. I went into the room and found it was smaller than the other but very warm with a big bronze tub there of steaming water, and a little fire roaring on the hearth and buckets set all around it.

“Into the bath, little boy,” said the girl.

I stepped in and sank down into the water, and she commenced to scrub me all over. She washed my hair thoroughly, rinsing it with buckets of warm water, and then, telling me to stand, started to wash between my legs with the same thoroughness she’d used all along.

“Well, I can tell you, that you’re gorgeous enough all right, but I don’t make the decisions. And look at that cock, standing up already.”

She turned me around and scrubbed my bottom in the same efficient way.

“Now you answer me as ‘madam’ and you answer all men as ‘sir,’ do you hear, though you may say ‘master’ or ‘mistress’ if you like, but I wouldn’t bother. Your lips are sealed, you understand, unless you’re directly questioned. And you never make an openmouthed sound—never an openmouthed moan or a sob or a cry, do you hear? Lips tight at all times. Now, go stand by the fire.”

I said, “Yes, madam.”

She rubbed me hard all over with the towel, and then oiled me with a delicious perfumed oil, and then dried and brushed my hair till she said it was “shining.”

None of this took very long as she was very good at what she did.

I was desperate to ask about the girl who’d come before me, but I didn’t dare.

“Well, if they don’t accept you, little boy, then I don’t know anything,” she said when she was finished. “So! From now on you walk with your eyes down and your hands on the back of your neck. Go through that door, and I wish you luck.”

She gave me a peck on the cheek. “Little boy,” she said as I was almost to the door. “If they don’t accept you, they’ll hire you for some service, I’m sure of it. You’re not just pretty. You’re a precious little knave if ever I saw one.”

The door opened before she finished, as though someone had been watching through a chink in the wall, and I headed into a larger room on a red carpet.

I realized there were at least four people around me, and from the sound of voices and other noise that I was in a large space.

At once a woman appeared before me, clamped her soft hands on the side of my head, and told me to look at her.

In a blur I saw the others were all men in long rich tunics, and that she was a goddess with red hair, or so one might think.

Her green eyes were beyond anything I’d ever beheld and so were her smiling lips.

“And you’re known by?”

“Brenn, madam,” I said. I almost stammered. I feared suddenly I’d faint! That was absurd, but the weakness I felt in my belly and the hardness of my cock were paralyzing me.

“That’s a pretty name,” said a tall blond-haired man beside her. He had a long sheet of parchment against a writing board and was scratching on it with a quill pen. The board had an ink well in it. He was remarkably handsome, with curling golden hair, and his own eyes were almost as exceptional as the lady’s eyes. “Brenn, is this the name you wish to be known by in the kingdom if you are accepted?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied.

“You look down now, little Brenn,” said the woman, “and you must not raise your eyes again. Remember, you are being tested in all things and have been for some time now. You must do your best to be obedient and perfect, but dignity is also highly desirable—only you must remember that your masters and mistresses ultimately define what is dignified.”

“Yes, madam,” I said.

My head swam. It was all too real! It was beyond anything I might have imagined, because I had never been able to imagine just how it would play out in detail here.

“And know that when I call you ‘little boy’ or ‘little Brenn,’” said the lady, “this is customary with all slaves to refer to them with such pet names and diminutives.” Her voice was kindly and sweet.

“Yes, madam.”

The tall blond man stepped forward and putting his hand on my shoulder he directed me to turn around.

“You are in fact a splendid big boy in every sense, Brenn,” he said. “And sometimes you’ll be called a ‘big boy’ with just as much affection as anything else.” His voice was more tender than the lady’s voice, deeper naturally and ever so more melodious. I found it disconcertingly beautiful. Somehow the way he said his words, the resonance, it made me feel more naked. But that seemed ridiculous.

I was now facing two other persons I could not clearly see.

“He’s too muscular for my taste,” said one, and it was a quavering elderly voice and full of anger. It was as if he’d slapped me.

“Now, Lord Gregory,” came a much-younger male voice, “I find this a most appealing sort—”

“Oh, yes, of course, Prince, you would,” said the elderly Lord Gregory. “And I’m sure His Majesty is likely to agree with you!” This was said with nothing short of disgust and rage. But the lady behind me was laughing.

I stared at the carpet, stared at the slippers of the men, stared at the ornate hems of their robes . . . at golden bees and curling vines, and pointed leaves embroidered on velvet. My face was flaming.

All at once, there were hands all over me, touching me, squeezing my arms and my legs, and my backside. Again, I thought I might go down in a faint like a coward! But I held steady. Even the long white hand of the elderly gentleman came out and touched my right nipple. Then he pinched it hard. I bit down not to cry out. He did the very same thing to my left nipple.

Then he slapped my cock so hard he almost knocked me off balance. I couldn’t help but make a little sound but my lips were sealed, as the pretty girl had told me they must be.

Meanwhile the others continued to examine to their heart’s content. The lady removed my right hand from the back of my neck and examined my fingers. And to my utter amazement I felt tears spring into my eyes, tears of utter helplessness. As she gently stroked my left hand I realized my legs were wobbling.

And to think this had all been done to Sybil, but then they’d likely said the nicest things about Sybil. Oh, what had made me think I’d be acceptable! Double dose of the potion that makes for a man or a woman!

The elderly man rubbed my shaven beard and made a sound of revulsion. “And look at his pubic hair, well, that will have to be groomed.”

“Oh, nonsense, my lord,” said the lady behind me. “It’s gorgeous. Black and thick. The King will love it. And I suspect the Queen will love it. Indeed, there is something about this one which suggests to me that the Queen might adore him. Now if the King likes him, well, the problem will be finding any other slave to match him if the King wants him for a team to pull his chariot.”

Pull his chariot!

“Steady, little boy,” said the Prince behind me with the wicked Lord Gregory. “I think you’re beautiful, simply beautiful. What do you think, Tristan?”

“Tristan” answered that he thought so too. “He’s what I would call quite wondrous. Unique certainly. He is near to six feet, near enough, and his thighs and calves are like a Roman statue’s! And look at his feet. They’re large but high arched with short thick toes. I like that. I like his shoulders, and well, his backside is perfect. The thing about his backside is, that for all his muscularity, he’s softly padded there. The Queen will love these details. Anyone would love these gifts.”

Keep steady, just keep steady, I thought to myself. Just as the Prince said to do. Keep steady. They are accepting you! Yet a sweet terror was threatening me.

I felt a hand for the first time on my balls. My cock was bobbing and I couldn’t control it. It was the hand of the Prince behind me. I felt something prod at my backside, prod at my anus.

Well, if I was actually going to faint it would be now. I knew this. But I didn’t. I felt a peak of excitement it seemed I’d never known before. A gloved finger was exploring my anus, and fingers were pushing at my bottom. The gloved finger had been oiled, and it went deep into me.

“I say not only is he acceptable,” said the lady, “but that he should be sent directly to the King and Queen as soon as he’s properly prepared.” As always her voice was almost gay and cheerful.

“Agreed,” said the one named Tristan. “All the details are perfect.”

And was it possible that he was the famous Tristan, friend of the King and Queen, who had helped to revive the kingdom?

The elderly man grumbled; indeed, he positively growled.

“Lord Gregory, look at his little backside,” said the lady, and I was turned around now to face her, so that I saw her slippers and the pretty ribbons sewn to her skirts. “Don’t you see how charmingly he’s made? The Queen will take an interest, I assure you. Indeed, I have an idea for the Queen with this one.”

I realized my eyes had glassed over. Never in all my life had I experienced anything like this moment. It was at such a pitch of intensity that I couldn’t measure it.

“He has aptitude,” said Tristan. “That’s plain enough and I like his nipples. The area around them—”

“The aureole,” said the lady.

“The aureoles are dark and large and beautiful. The King will love that. And I’d be amazed if the Queen didn’t love it too. Yes, the pubic hair is thick and unkempt. Look, it crawls up to his navel and down his thighs, but again, look at his face, his eyes . . . he’s like a . . .”

“He has a highly unusual combination of endowments,” said the Prince behind me. There was something faintly amused and mocking in his tone, but I think it might have been meant for the elderly gentleman. “I like him myself very much, and if neither the King nor the Queen chooses him, I’ll choose him. That’s quite enough for me right there.”

The garrulous old lord snorted. Then his wicked hand was on my bottom squeezing it painfully. Had to be his fingers doing this.

“You overrule me as you always do,” he muttered behind me.

“Well, not always, my lord, that is not fair,” said the Prince beside me. “And more often than not we all agree as we did with the last young lady.”

This might mean Sybil. Desperately, I had to believe that it meant Sybil.

“Now that was an appropriate applicant,” said the old man. “And proud and spoilt and deserving of punishment. But decent, nevertheless, promising.”

The tears were now flowing from my eyes, but I held steady, swallowing, trying not to work my lips. They had all agreed on Sybil! Think of that. Now I must be accepted.

“Look at me again, little boy,” said the lady lifting my face. Punishment. The word echoed in my ears. And real punishment had not even begun.

It was a shock to see her face, to see anyone’s face, because this meant that others had been seeing my face all along. When you look into a person’s eyes you feel that they are looking at you.

“Now stop trembling so much, little satyr,” she said. “You’ve been well brought up, haven’t you? You’ve dined with nobility.”

“Yes, my lady, clerk to a duke,” I said and then bit my lip.

“Ah, excellent. And you have lovely hands. And you keep them on the back of your neck as you’ve been told.”

“Yes, madam.”

“With these muscles and that beard,” said the elderly lord, “he ought to be at the lowest work in the village. In the fields in fact.”

I stared expressionless at the lady but she smiled warmly.

“Well, now, that will be the decision of the King or the Queen,” she replied. She turned and requested from someone that her strap and paddle should be brought.

Now, likely, my blushing stopped and I drained of all color. I was suddenly terrified. What if I couldn’t endure it, couldn’t endure standing still for it, couldn’t possibly— I felt a sudden urge to drop to my knees and ask them to give me a moment to prepare, but that was absurd, and absolutely unacceptable.

“You don’t want to send him on to be spanked?” asked Prince Tristan.

“No, I want to see it settled here and now,” said the lady. “I like this one.”

“Well, then you’ll allow me to put him to the test,” said the elderly man.

He reached past me and took a long black leather strap from someone who had just brought it for the lady.

It was a thick strap.

There was a noise behind me, a soft sound, and as the lady turned me around now, or I should say as she turned me to the side, I saw a low stool there.

“Up on this, you crude little brat,” said the elderly man. “Move now. I’ll see what you’re made of! You want to serve in Bellavalten, do you?”

I climbed on the stool—it was only a foot off the ground—and the two princes stood in front of me. The lord’s voice stung me to the quick. But I was determined to endure. Indeed I was so determined that it seemed I had no choice. I felt elated.

“Reach up over your head,” said Prince Tristan. “Yes, that ring. Grasp it with both hands. And keep your eyes fixed downward, as is proper.”

The tears were splashing down my face. But the elation grew ever more intense. It was as if I were floating.

As I took the round leather-clad ring firmly in my hands, Prince Tristan stepped up closer.

“Now be brave, Brenn, you want to serve, remember?” said Tristan. “Your lips are to remain closed—sealed, as we say in the kingdom. You may cry, of course. Your masters and mistresses fancy the pretty sparkle of tears. But sobbing, moaning, whatever you cannot suppress, all this must be done with lips tightly shut.” His voice was so gentle it was like being comforted, stroked. “I’m going to hold your chin firmly while you’re beaten. And please know that Prince Alexi here and I both know how hard this is for you.”

I pressed my lips together, vowing not to make a sound.

Though I was looking down I could see them both through my tears. And the voice, the tenderness in the voice, was as piercing and paralyzing as the anger of the old Lord Gregory. I couldn’t quite understand why, but it made me cry all the more freely.

“Keep your legs closed,” said the elderly gentleman. “Those balls of yours are enormous. I don’t want to hit them. And if you dare move your feet from the wood or your hands from that ring, I’ll beat you over every inch of your body before I send you back where you came from!”

He drew up close, his garments touching me all over in a feathery way, and he said in my ear: “If you dare to waste my time, you’ll be sorry for it!” Then he moved back.

The strap almost knocked me to the side. He must have doubled it because the blows came so fast, one after another, cutting me from below and then slicing across my thighs.

Tristan’s fingers tightened on my chin, and another hand, the hand of Prince Alexi, reached out and began to gently squeeze the tip of my cock.

“That’s it,” he said softly. Same loving tenderness as Tristan. “Stand firm, Brenn. You are doing very well.”

I barely heard him over the loud smacking blows, coming so fast I’d lost all count. My bottom felt as if it had doubled in size and was ablaze with the sweetest pain, a strange delicious pain, a throbbing pain, and I was afraid suddenly that if Prince Alexi didn’t stop I would come in his hand. Maybe he wanted me to do this!

I was so confused, so helpless, being pushed this way and that by the strap, struggling to stand firm and not to come, that the tears just flooded my eyes and I could hear, hear as if it were someone else, my own sobs behind my clenched teeth.

I realized I was struggling, but I hadn’t moved either my hands or my feet, and I closed my eyes shut, I couldn’t help it and tried with all my will not to wriggle or squirm when the strap hit me.

“Stand up straight!” said the angry lord. He whacked away at my thighs now, back and forth, back and forth, and worked down now to my calves, jumping past the tender underside of my knees.

The blows stung in a different way on my calves, but all my backside was aflame from the strap. The strap whipped at my ankles, hard, and then suddenly it was back up again on my bottom.

“See, it is a very shapely and lovely bottom,” said the lady.

The lord paused in his work. I shook violently all over. A surge of electric sensation passed through me. I felt I was floating again.

Prince Alexi, thankfully, let go of my cock.

I felt his fingers cup my balls. He was using both hands.

“Priceless,” he said. “Their Majesties will love this equipment.” There was that dark slightly mocking tone again. But he wasn’t mocking me. I knew it.

I couldn’t stop the tears, hadn’t been able to stop them from the start, so I stopped trying and just stood there feet together, hands grasping the hook and cried.

“Keep your eyes down now, Brenn,” said the lady. She moved around until she stood between the two princes who made way for her.

I thought, If she touches my cock, I’ll spend. Nobody could ask otherwise!

“Now, Lord Gregory, perhaps you should beat the young man a little more. I want to see this cock perform.”

The strap struck hard. The intense hot pain felt gorgeously sweet again and agonizing at the same time. I felt weightless, as if I were rising when I wasn’t, and the blows filled my senses, my ears with the sound, my flesh with the vibrating smack, and even my eyes as the darkness into which I gazed seemed to throb and brighten.

I turned my head towards my left arm, but Prince Tristan said no very clearly to this and held my chin firm.

Again and again the strap crisscrossed my backside, and the pain seemed to flood my entire body, to move through my legs and even my arms, and to gather in my cock.

The lady’s hand closed over it and began to stroke it, stroke it hard and fast and tight. Her hand had been greased and the greasing made it slip very fast back and forth.

I came with a loud irrepressible groan.

On and on she stroked until the spasm stopped.

I hung there, the strap slowing, the leather almost caressing me.

“You’re adorable!” said the lady. “Just adorable. And I think the King and the Queen will eat you up with a golden spoon.”

“Yes, madam,” I said. I might have fallen then on the floor.

“I vote to send him on now to sign his documents,” she said.

The Princes agreed. The elderly old man said nothing.

Then I heard him clear his throat.

“Well, that makes two for this morning, and what was her name?”

“Sybil, my lord,” said the lady. “Let go of the ring, Brenn, and step down.”

Sybil. They had spoken her name. They had confirmed it. Two, and they had accepted her and accepted me.

I stepped off the stool though my legs were positively vibrating like harp strings.

The lady turned me around to face where she had stood before. And once again, she held my face in her hands.

I’d dropped my hands to the back of my neck. I hoped this was right, hoped I had done it gracefully and properly.

My backside throbbed with the most penetrating and exquisite sensation.

“Now walk quietly to that door,” she said. “You’ll sign your documents and then you’ll be groomed and oiled, you understand? But think hard in these next few minutes on all you’ve endured here. I’m recommending you to the Court itself, to the very highest level of the kingdom. And yes, I know that you are eager for news of your friend, Sybil, and she has been sent on for the Court, for the King and Queen, as well.”

“Thank you, most gracious madam,” I whispered, though it seemed impossible that I had formed words at all.

I was weak with relief, weak to hear her speak these kind words, these merciful words on Sybil, but the old lord was mumbling that I was not fit to kiss Sybil’s toes, that she was the very kind of Naiad that the old queen had cherished, but I was a crude hairy satyr fit only to be hunted through the forest by the King for sport, if anything. . . .

“Come, darling,” said the lady guiding me to the door. To the guard, she whispered, “Take him to sign his documents and tell the groom that Lady Eva said she has taken a special interest in Brenn as she has with Sybil. I want them rested and ready for me by dusk. Shave this one’s face, of course, closely and trim the hair of his head but only a little—and trim absolutely nothing else!”

iii

The office of the clerk was down a long carpeted corridor. And what I’d imagined as a gatehouse was revealing itself to be a large stone compound. Bright summer light burned through the narrow arched window at the far end, but we never got that far.

The handsome attendant guided me firmly with a warm tight-gloved hand on my upper arm. He was as tall as I was.

“Well, quite the whipping, young man,” he said evenly. “And you must have taken it very well if Lady Eva is passing you through without a full ‘over the knee’ paddling and other tests. Be assured, your groom will get her message. Go in here, and try to think straight about what you’re doing, as there is no undoing it. And I’m supposed to remind you of that.”

As he forced me into the clerk’s chamber, he gave me a hard squeeze with his gloved hand right on the sorest of my sore flesh. And I winced, but didn’t break form or respond except to murmur, “Yes, sir.”

It seemed I could hear a strap or paddle going somewhere working hard, and there flashed into my mind the image of Sybil being paddled over the knee and I felt my cock stiffen again. She’s been accepted, I told myself, now leave the matter.

The clerk’s office was cluttered, and I found myself before a high desk littered with parchment and ink stands and feather pens while a wall of fat bulging books rose to the ceiling behind the man.

I didn’t look him in the face naturally. But I could see in a blur that he was older with dark gray hair.

The door shut behind me.

“Look to the right, Brendon of Arcolot,” said the clerk. “In that open chest there, are those your belongings?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied at once because they were. My bundle had been emptied, and my books and papers and clothes and shoes were all neatly arranged, with the sack itself in which I’d carried them folded. It even appeared to have been washed, but there seemed scarcely time for that.

He was busy scribbling for a while, as I stood waiting, the pain simmering warmly all through my bottom and my legs. My calf muscles twitched. And I realized my cock was hard again.

It didn’t seem to matter at all to him.

“Very well, and is that all you possess? Do you wish to look through it?”

“No, sir, that’s all. I can see it.”

“Very well, and you can read this document, can you?”

“Yes, sir.”

He turned the long page to me.

I saw it had been written out in advance in wonderful script and my name had been filled in by a careful but less-fluent hand.

“I, Brendon of Arcolot, hereafter to be known as Brenn, do of my own free will . . .” And on it went, affirming that in six months’ time, if I failed to please, I’d be sent from the kingdom, but that I might at that juncture choose to go of my own free will, and would be released without question if I so wished it. But I was being received now for no less than two years’ service, and once that probationary period was past, I would continue in that service, not to be released on any account ever unless the King and the Queen chose to find me unfit and exile me.

All the protections were spelled out—no cutting, burning, harming the skin, the organs, the health of a slave, and so forth—and the promises that I would be well fed, well groomed, and allowed plenty of sleep and so forth and so on.

It was easy to wrest the sense from the ornate and official language, and I marveled even in my trembling state at the beauty of the hand and the phrasing.

As I took the quill and signed my full name, I acknowledged as the document said that my body was now the property of King Laurent and Queen Beauty of Bellavalten, to do with as they wished within the constraints assured to me. I would never be sold outside the kingdom nor given to anyone who did not abide by its laws.

There was a lot more there, all about how incorrigibles might be exiled, and what it meant to be incorrigible. But I knew all this.

I wasn’t going to be incorrigible.

As the clerk seemed so utterly indifferent to my physical state, my nakedness, the redness of my limbs, or the manner in which I stood there, I almost ventured the question of whether or not Sybil had signed her document.

But at that very moment, I saw Sybil’s green wool mantle, the one she’d worn all the way from our home, and that it was folded in an open chest that stood beside my chest. I saw the lining of gray miniver. And in that chest there was also a long parchment document. Daring to turn my head in full I read the huge and familiar signature of Sybil of Arcolot on it plainly.

The clerk never noticed. He was making some notes in a great book.

Then he lifted a brass bell with a wooden handle and rang it.

“This one is ready for you,” he said without looking up to another well-dressed man who appeared. Like the other attendant earlier, he was comely, obviously chosen for his grace and his looks.

“Ah, so this is the second one directed for the royal table or stable,” said the attendant.

Table or stable! He’s spoken these words without a touch of humor. It startled me.

I felt his gloved fingers closing on my left arm and he pulled me out the door.

Then came the weary murmuring voice of the clerk.

“I wish you good fortune, Brendan of Arcolot,” he said, “you and your sweet Lady Sybil. When the King comes tonight to inspect as he so often does, and ask whether this has been a good day, I shall tell him that it has been splendid.”

iv

This seemed to be a vast garden. I couldn’t tell. The quality of the light was bright yet not outdoor light, and only gradually did I realize as I was led through the potted trees that this was a tented enclosure that filtered the sun through white cloth.

I saw stone flooring beneath me strewn with mats and felt the mats under my naked feet and caught the scent of oranges. The air was sweet with other mingled scents, jasmine and mint, and slightly damp.

It seemed we’d walked forever until we came to a great bathing area where naked slaves were being bathed by liveried attendants in bronze or pewter tubs.

Water in tin buckets simmered on smoking braziers and the scent of cedar and incense thickened.

With my eyes down I could only catch furtive glimpses of the naked bodies standing or kneeling all around me for this bathing, and the glossy green leaves of potted shrubs brushed my legs softly as we moved on.

“Ah, there,” said the attendant, “and a great and good groom, Fane, who is beckoning for us. You’re blessed.”

He pushed me roughly forward until I was staring down into the warm water swirling with flower petals.

I heard him say to the groom named Fane that Lady Eva would likely be presenting me at Court this very night, and that I was to be thoroughly prepared, my face shaved but none of my body hair touched.

“Hmm, the chest hair is becoming enough,” said Fane, a young man in a light white short-sleeved tunic with what appeared a big scrubbing brush in his hand. “But the pubic hair, it’s so thick and so long.”

“Lady Eva was explicit,” said the attendant. “Goodbye, Brenn, and good luck to you.” He gave my backside a fierce smack.

I was ordered into the water by the groom who went to work as fiercely as the pretty female before.

“Quite a physique, young boy,” he said. “My name is Fane, by the way, and when you answer me, you may address me as ‘sir’ or as ‘Fane.’ That’s the way with all grooms or pages or handlers—the name or the respectful ‘sir’ or ‘madam.’”

“Yes, Fane,” I murmured.

“Oh, you don’t have to speak unless asked a question,” he said, correcting me.

I didn’t know what to do but nod.

He had me kneel up, then on all fours, then sit in the warm water as he worked, and spared no part of my body with the big, and thankfully soft, brush.

I couldn’t stop glancing about me—seeing flashes of other slaves being lathered and scrubbed and rubbed with foaming oils, the many grooms all quite similar in build and beauty, young men with powerful arms and sturdy backs and legs.

Beyond this ring of baths, I glimpsed a wilderness of what seemed high narrow beds on which naked flesh was being pounded and kneaded and rubbed with oil.

That part of the preparation came for me as soon as Fane had closely shaved my face and dried my hair.

He began to talk now as he stretched me out on the table and told me to slip my cock through the open hole provided for this before he pressed me down flat.

“Now, listen, Brenn, remembering my name’s not important, as you’ll likely not see me again if you behave yourself, but you’ll soon have regular grooms, grooms you’ll come to know and depend on,” he said.

He rubbed oil into my sore abraded bottom first and then my aching legs. The oil felt wondrously good and so did his powerful hands.

“Grooms are always willing to answer any questions you might have,” he went on. “And to make certain that you’re fearing all the proper things.” He laughed. “By that I mean, we’re to reassure you of what is in store for you and reassure you as to what is not.”

He turned my head to one side and let me rest on the left side of my face and now as he worked on my hair, brushing it strongly, obviously to bring up the natural luster of it, I could see beyond this area, and what appeared an entire wall of niches where naked slaves slept. So many! It seemed I could see thirty or forty, though I didn’t try to count.

“So you have nothing to ask me, Brenn?” he coaxed. “As long as you address me properly as ‘sir,’ and ask nothing importunate or willful, I’m here to tell you what I can.”

“May I ask about the woman who came here with me, who went in before me?”

“No, that you may not do,” he said. “Never ask about another slave, and always address me as ‘sir’ when you speak.” He slapped me hard on my backside as he said this. “It’s not for me to discipline you or punish you,” he explained. “Unless I’m told to do so. You’re for your masters and mistresses, but I’m to whip you hard if you show the slightest disrespect.”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. It feel so strange to say it, and yet so simple at the same time.

“That’s better,” he said. His powerful fingers were rubbing my scalp. Ripples of sensation traveled my head and my back and the backs of my arms. I felt drowsy suddenly. And there came a flash of dream as though sleep were suddenly reaching for me.

I was awakened suddenly by his fingers oiling my anus, though it seemed now that he wore a glove. He was not rough but he wasn’t gentle either.

“Nice and tight,” he said in a matter-of-fact voice. “The King will love that.”

“Do you think I’ll be taken directly to the King, sir?” I asked.

“Now that you shouldn’t ask either.”

He smacked me hard several times. I kept my lips tightly closed but I groaned. I couldn’t help it.

“Brenn, don’t you understand what types of questions are not permitted?”

“I’m trying, sir,” I said under my breath.

“Well, since I said I’d answer what I could, I will,” he said. “Yes, Lady Eva is taking you to see the King and the Queen. But that doesn’t mean you’ll ever see either of them again. Many new piglets like you are presented to Their Majesties, all those whom Lady Eva selects, but they may send you off at once to some other part of the Court or the kingdom. So spend your precious time with them wisely. You do not bow to them as if you were a free man. You wait to be commanded as to whether you kneel down or up or stand. But you may kiss their feet when you’re presented. A slave may always drop down and kiss the feet of a master or mistress, including the King and Queen, but don’t do it clumsily or awkwardly. Be completely submissive. You know what that word means? And don’t dare look at your masters or mistresses the way you were glancing at me from that tub. Don’t dare look at anyone that way!”

“I’m sorry, sir,” I said. I hadn’t realized that he had noticed.

“Now turn completely over and keep your eyes half shut,” he said. He set to work on my chest with the same vigor he’d used on my back, rubbing the oil into me as if I were carved of wood.

“You do have the prettiest face,” he said. “Such baby cheeks and lips, like a Cupid.”

I closed my eyes to avoid looking at him because I didn’t know what else to do, and he didn’t reprove me for this, but went to work positively polishing my balls and cock as he’d polished everything else.

I was hard, hopelessly hard, and he was maddeningly careful not to touch the tip of my cock.

“Behave yourself,” he said in a low voice. “You dare come, and I’ll have to report that to Lady Eva. And I can’t say what will happen to you then. That cock belongs to the King and Queen and the Court now, and all the noble and gentlefolk of this kingdom, and even to the common people and the peasants, you understand?”

“Yes, sir, I understand.”

“To even the lowliest people of the kingdom, it belongs, you understand? No longer to you. Your entire body, your eyes, your voice, all belong to the kingdom.”

“Yes, sir.”

His ministrations continued and lulled me again to the edge of a dreamy erotic sleep, my cock being the only substantial thing in my mind as I drifted off.

When he finally pulled me up by my wrists, I woke up from this half slumber with a shiver, and once again he smacked my backside very hard with his hand.

Suddenly, as if he couldn’t stop himself, he put his foot up on a stool and pulled me over his thigh and spanked my backside over and over, hard, in the same way, his naked fingers hard as wood.

I found myself groaning again. I couldn’t help it. But to the walloping with the strap, this was like spice compared to supper. To say that my cock loved it would be an understatement.

I saw the whole room in a bright flash. I saw slaves being very roughly bathed and others soothed, it seemed, and some being smacked over and over by their grooms, in one stage or another of their toilet. I saw some over the knee as I was.

He didn’t spank me all that long, but my cock felt like it was made of stone.

He brought me up straight.

“You’re a good boy,” he said approvingly. “A very good boy. I have this feeling, ah, but what do I know? If the Queen or the King don’t take you, you’ll still be at Court at table or stable.”

There it was again, that phrase. But I was weeping at his praise and reassurance. Then realizing I’d said nothing I answered frantically under my breath:

“Yes, sir.”

“Not required.” He laughed. “I didn’t ask you a question.” Another hard squeeze on my sore bottom. “But you’ll learn. You might be gagged for a while, but that’s to be avoided. Your betters can’t see your pretty mouth when you’re gagged. And the Queen especially does not care for gags on her slaves unless they’re being corrected for impertinence. See that you’re not corrected for impertinence.”

We passed many others as we moved towards the far wall. I scanned the countless niches in vain for my precious Sybil. But she might have been one of many sleeping dark-haired beauties, with her head turned away.

There were small stools and stepladders by the wall of beds.

Suddenly, I was being lifted by Fane and another groom to a niche just above my head. I was slipped into it and onto the softest silken mattress I ever felt.

“Over on your back,” said Fane, mounting a little ladder. He reached in and tethered my hands by means of leather thongs to a hook just above my head. My arms weren’t pulled tight, and it wasn’t painful, but there was no way I could touch my cock.

“Now, you go to sleep, Brenn,” he said. “Of course you’ll twist your neck trying to see all that’s going on here. Well, do that and be done with it, and then let sleep come. You’ll be surprised how easy it will be for you to sleep. And don’t dare to try to turn over, or get your hands free, or pleasure yourself, or you’ll be punished in ways you haven’t foreseen. Never touch your own cock or your privates, Brenn. Never. They don’t belong to you. Remember.”

Then he was gone.

I was in the soft silken-lined niche and I was staring up at the low painted ceiling, and at my own hands tethered to the hook.

Of course I turned my head and looked out on the vast room. So much to see, but then sleep came down over me like a veil.

Sometime much later, I was turned over and my hands were tethered loosely at my sides. My cock and balls had been placed on an opening so that they got no friction. I dozed off again with a groom rubbing unguents into my skin all over. There came the prickling delicious pain when his hands found the raw abraded skin but the sensations melted into sleep.

v

It was dusk when I awoke. A soft golden light filled the tented room, and a young naked slave was lighting the candles in the many standing candelabra.

I blinked. The figure of a tall, slender elegant lady was coming towards me, and gradually I realized it was the red-haired Lady Eva.

Two young men walked beside her and she directed them towards me.

I was taken out of the niche carefully and gently and planted on my feet, then turned around so that she might inspect me.

Her cool hands prodded and felt of me all over. I wondered if this would be worse, more shaming, if she were not so beautiful.

“Excellent skin. Very fine skin,” she said. “Feed him the apples.”

One of the grooms put a small slice of apple into my mouth and told me to chew it up thoroughly.

“You’ll always be given apples when you waken, and several times a day, to clean your teeth and freshen your mouth,” Lady Eva said. “Never go before your masters and mistresses without this little ritual, Brenn. Do wake up and answer me.”

“Yes, my lady. I mean, yes, madam,” I said.

“You may use that form of address if you like. I’m taking you to the Queen.”

The two attendants were rubbing me down with oil again, and one blotting the excess with a clean linen towel. As I stood there, one did a skilled job of again shaving my beard very close.

“Ah, your cock is sensitive, attentive, and beautiful,” Lady Eva said.

With a shock, I felt her fingers on my balls. She fondled them and patted them very lightly.

“Now, you may address the Queen as ‘my queen’ or ‘Your Majesty.’ Same for the King of course, ‘my king,’ and so forth.”

“Yes, madam,” I said.

Another man approached. He was taller than the two grooms, and very powerfully built. I had no idea why he was there.

My hair was brushed, my fingernails inspected, my toenails, my pubic hair combed, which amazed me, and then the lady pinched my nipples and said they were bright pink, which she liked.

Then she told the man we were going to the Queen’s parlor.

He heaved me over his shoulder as if I were no more than a child to him, and holding my ankles firmly in his hands, he headed off behind her, with me dangling down his back, my hands clasped to my neck and my eyes fixed on Lady Eva’s rose-colored silk skirts as she walked before me.

The blood was rushing to my head, but that was the least of my concerns. I felt more feeble and powerless than ever before. The man walked very fast and so did Lady Eva.

Through a garden we were moving and I could hear music around us and the hum of voices, but I could see almost nothing. With a shock it came to me that we were in a vast place and lots of people were passing us without so much as a word as to my being carried like this in their midst.

Indeed the noise grew thicker and thicker and the ground beneath us was layered with overlapping carpets of red and blue with intricate Eastern patterns. Torches flickered brightly all around us, and I could hear the sound of fountains.

This was utterly unnerving. To have been examined as I’d been by a few people and in an enclosed place was one thing, but this was like being carried naked through a marketplace or a fairground.

My face was down, hidden, however, and I was very grateful for that. But I peeped from left to right to see what I could, and suddenly saw with a shock a gorgeous noble lady seated at a marble table who smiled at me.

The shock was too much and I shut my eyes.

Then someone else passed and patted my head saying, “Lovely boy, Lady Eva.”

“Nothing too good for the King and Queen,” Lady Eva replied airily.

Again shock. I was exposed, my backside, legs, likely my genitals were visible, and there was nothing I could do about it even if I wanted to do something. The powerful man held my ankles firmly.

We entered a stone passage, and moved through a vast echoing hall, filled with voices and the soft tread of shoes, and then up a staircase.

The lady climbed the steps in front of me effortlessly, I could hear her, and now I could not see her, and again I closed my eyes because something about the stairs, climbing higher and higher, alarmed me.

We must have gone quite high up in the castle, before we entered a broad passage and proceeded down it.

I saw a floor of polished pavers carpeted again with a multitude of patterned carpets. All the merchants of Italy and the Orient must have come with these wares, I thought.

Doors here and there opened and closed and lords and ladies passed. I glimpsed brocade and tooled slippers.

We came to a stop and a man’s voice announced:

“Lady Eva to see Her Majesty.”

We advanced and the door was closed behind us.

The silence of the room suddenly enclosed us.

The man pulled down my ankles and flipped me back into his left arm, then turned me around and planted me on my feet and held my bottom firmly as I found my balance.

I clamped my hands tightly on the back of my neck. And I stared at the thick burgundy wool carpet.

Silence.

The low crackling of a fire, and its dim flashing light on the walls and in the corner of my eyes; the sound of breathing. And perhaps a caged bird singing.

“Well, you did not exaggerate,” said a woman’s soft melodious voice.

The Sleeping Beauty!

Could it be? I had been told over and over I would be brought here, yet my heart beat wildly inside me and I trembled.

“Yes, I think this is quite remarkable,” said Lady Eva. “Now down on your knees, Brenn. Yes, like that. Your Majesty, I haven’t trained this lovely porklet at all, I’ve brought him straight from the Hall of Postulants but I thought you should see him.”

“You did right, absolutely right, and little piglet, your posture and demeanor are perfect.” The voice was kindly, generous. “Now come here to me, that’s it, slowly, and though you are on your hands and knees you must be graceful. At all times, graceful. Do you know how beautiful you are, little boy?”

How could I answer that!

I moved forward, the carpet thick and soft under my hands and knees, forward, hoping that soon I’d know if I was going in the right direction. I was of course heading towards the source of the voice.

Then I saw the legs of a heavily carved oak chair, and I saw great full skirts of sky-blue silk and delicate gold tracery, and slippers, beautifully shaped slippers with pointed toes.

And the voice of Fane still in my mind, I kept moving until I could kiss the slippers of the woman and I did so.

“Ah, that is so touching,” she said kindly. “What an excellent boy. You are a gem. Now kneel up so I can see your endowments and your handsome strong chest and your face.”

I obeyed, hands to the regular position, and I felt my face burning hot. I knew I was blinking and trying to blink back tears. Why were the tears coming so quickly? My cock had never been harder in my life.

Staring down, I could see it, bloodred, with a shining wet tip. I bit my lip and waited in agony. Nothing that had gone before was quite like this.

“Well, you are a faun!” said the Queen. “I expect to find hooves on those feet, but no, they’re beautiful. Eva, he has the body of a satyr and the face of a Cupid.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.”

“And look at all this luxuriant hair.”

I saw a slender graceful hand move towards me, the fingers tugging at the dark hair of my chest, and moving down my belly, pulling at the hair gently, sending tingling sensations through me. The fingers plunged into my pubic hair and the Queen laughed and laughed. As before, I thought I might lose consciousness, or at least conscious control of my body.

“This is truly a magnificent young faun!” she said. “And your name is Brenn, precious one?”

“Yes, my queen,” I said. My throat was so dry the words came out scratchy and low. My mouth was quivering.

“Ah, what a little banquet you are for your mistress!” The long tapering fingers touched my cock but very lightly. I bit down on a gasp. “Now stand up and turn around, young faun,” she said, “without moving your hands . . . that’s it. Good boy. Oh, what a splendid backside.”

“It’s tightly muscled,” said Lady Eva. “Yet nicely padded. And if you could have seen the spanking with a belt that Lord Gregory gave him just hours ago, well, you wouldn’t believe it.”

“No, he’s barely pink,” said the Queen. “Pink as a rabbit’s ear or a kitten’s tongue. Turn around towards me again, Brenn.”

I obeyed.

I swallowed. My legs were vibrating but I don’t think they were visibly shaking.

I heard the sound of a door open.

“Laurent, I’m so glad you’ve come. Look at this little satyr who arrived today.”

A heavy tread approached, and even with my eyes down I could see the enormous figure of King Laurent beside me. The blood drained from my face. The tears hovered in my eyes.

A low laugh of amazement came from the King.

“Well, Eva, darling, this is beyond all imagining. Young man, I expect to find pointed ears here.” His hand clasped my chin and lifted it. “And this beard, ah, what a thick beard.”

The Queen laughed. “I said very nearly the same thing myself,” she confessed. “But he’s all little boy, every morsel of him.”

“This face was just shaved for the second time today, sire,” said Lady Eva. “That’s going to take attending, and of course the hair, all of it can be trimmed, or shaved.”

“Oh, no, I wouldn’t hear of it,” said the Queen. “I love it. Why even his backside has a nice thin covering of fleecy dark hair. This is sublime. Turn around again, Brenn.”

I obeyed.

“But you must speak up when I give you an order, darling,” said the Queen behind me. “You must acknowledge that your queen has spoken to you.”

I swallowed hard, and said, “Yes, my queen” immediately. I didn’t dare protest I’d been taught the opposite.

“I like his voice too,” said the King.

“He’s educated,” said Lady Eva, “clerk to a duke.”

“Ah, very good,” said the King. “Well, young Brenn—” He lifted my chin again. “Recite a line to me from Propertius.”

“In Latin, sire, or in the translation?” I asked.

The King roared with laugher. “You know Propertius’s elegies?” he asked.

“Yes, sire. ‘Amor takes no little happiness in a sprinkling of tears . . . there is joy in a new slavery as well . . .’” I broke off, after combining two lines.

“And where did you discover the translation?” the King asked.

“I translated it from the Latin, sire, when I was bored and had nothing else to do,” I answered. Was this too bold, too proud? Instantly I regretted it.

“Ooh no, no!” cried the Queen. “You can’t make of him a poet here, Laurent. He’s mine. I declare it.”

“Of course, my darling, my love,” said the King. “Don’t be so suspicious of me, but this is a fine scholar, and who says his duties can’t include the recitation of poetry now and then?”

“In time, perhaps, my lord,” said the Queen. “Right now, I want him. I don’t know quite what I shall do with him.”

“I have an idea, Your Majesty,” said Lady Eva.

“Well, then speak,” said the Queen.

“My queen, your lady ponies are lovely, but it takes two or more to pull even the lightest chariot for you. What about a male pony, a male pony so strong and striking that he can pull your little chariot and you all by himself? I think this would make a magnificent picture!”

“That would be quite tasty,” said the Queen. “Who’s to say I cannot have a male for such a thing?”

“No one,” said the King. “But I do want to play with this boy for a while. Can we take the matter slowly?”

“Of course,” said the Queen. “But couldn’t we have him trained in your stables?”

“Your Majesty, I can, of course,” said Lady Eva, “but why not in your very own stable, right with the girl ponies? Bring the few males, as you select them, into your stable to be trained. Every groom you have knows how to train both male and female ponies.”

“I don’t see why not,” said the Queen. “But he is a very sturdy and strong boy, and I thought the boy ponies had harsher training.”

“Share him with me,” said the King. “Put him in with the males for now. Male ponies have a special camaraderie. Let him train with my men, with César and Bastian and Caspian. I’m thinking this boy is strong enough to pull even my solitary chariot. I’ll have him trained and then sent to you ready for your equipage. After he’s learned with my men, been worked with my men, he can handle your little chariot beautifully.”

“Very well,” said the Queen, “that’s fine, but tonight at supper in the garden, he will be my footstool. And Brenn, this is a simple task for a young man who is inherently well behaved. You’ll kneel before my chair, and I assure you, my feet are not heavy.”

The King laughed. “He’ll do well. But first I think I’ll drain the cup so that he doesn’t spill over.”

Suddenly his powerful arm swung round in front of me and he hoisted me in the air as easily as the strong attendant had done it, flung me over his shoulder and carried me from the room, leaving the women laughing together.

I was only dangling that way for a split second. He slammed a door behind him and lifted me and put me on a broad oak sideboard facing him.

“Look at me, little Pan,” he said.

I did. I looked at a face I’d heard described a thousand times, and none of those paeans touched it. He had huge glittering brown eyes, crinkled at the corners, and a brilliant generous smile. His skin was dark and lustrous and his hair a tangled raiment of brown waves.

“Oh, you are so pretty!” he said.

“Yes, sire,” I whispered. There was a lump in my throat.

He laughed.

“Spread your legs wide. I want that cock for my supper!”

He grabbed at my nipples with both his hands pushing me back against the wall and then he descended on my cock as I gasped and shut my eyes.

His tight lips worked it hard, stroking it back and forth, back and forth, his tongue licking at the tip. I thought I would cry out in ecstasy. His fingers ground at my nipples.

I felt nothing, knew nothing, but this searing, blinding pleasure.

Surely he would turn away when I had to come. I sought respectfully as I could to pull loose, to warn him, moaning frantically, but he clutched my backside, lifting it off the wood, and held me fast to his mouth. It is the King!

When I came I let out a series of choking sobs. I couldn’t stop myself.

I felt myself dropped down again on the wood, and a large hand steadying my chest.

“Cupid’s nectar,” he said. Then he moved away.

In a blur, I saw the ceiling, the burning candles of the room, and then his figure again looming before me. He was drinking from a goblet thirstily, and I could smell the wine.

A low laugh came out of him. He seemed enormous, larger than any man I’d ever beheld, and I felt small, deliciously weak! Of course I myself was a big man and he was tall though not a giant. But in my mind he appeared to grow and I to shrink immeasurably.

I melted. I dissolved. I wasn’t there. Yet I had never been more present anywhere else in all my existence, seated naked on this broad sideboard, my sore bottom aching on the wood and my cock limp and my soul sunk down into some deep stratum of quiet beyond language.

I dared not look at his face. I closed my eyes again.

The kingdom. Bellavalten!

Oh, Sybil, I pray your hours have been as eventful and as glorious as mine have been!

“Tell you what, you tasty little sausage, you may be headed to the stables all right, but not for a few nights, not till Queen Beauty and I have had some fun with you.”

He stared at my cock. It was already hard again.

vi

It was full night but the gardens were as brightly lighted as if it were day. The roar of voices was all around me, with music rising in waves above it.

The Queen led me on a scarlet leather leash by a scarlet collar around my neck. She’d combed my hair herself with the gentlest fingers, and she pulled me along on my hands and knees beside her skirts. I was not to lift my head on any account, or a wider collar would be used for me that didn’t allow me to lift my head, and she didn’t want for that to happen.

On and on we walked over the great floor of carpets and soft grass and carpets once more. I glimpsed figures dancing, heard the quick rhythm of drums or tambourines. And everywhere great shining explosions of laughter and excited conversation.

Again and again, people to the right and left bowed to the Queen: “Your Majesty!” The hushed and reverent voices hurled their whispers at her feet.

I couldn’t bear to think of what they saw if they looked at me, if they even noticed me at all, but then my heart would swell with pride. She had chosen me for this, for her pet, to be led like her favored puppy alongside of her. She had chosen me and on my very first night in the kingdom!

Now and then a paddle smacked my bottom hard. But it was not the Queen who did this, but Lady Eva. “Straight back now, Brenn,” she said. “That’s it. Now, look up just a little, as you must climb this step onto the dais and you must do it gracefully. The entire Court is watching you, young man.”

I obeyed.

“Under the table now, that’s it,” said Lady Eva. “And you’re to kneel there.”

“Ah yes, and now you may crouch down, and rest back on your heels and lower your shoulders and rest on your forearms,” said the Queen. “And put your head down, yes, that’s very nice. And don’t move and don’t speak. You might want to sleep now. You can be a good little footstool and still sleep. But when I prod that pretty cock with my slipper, I want to feel it wake.”

I obeyed. The carpet under my feet was soft, and the light poured gently through the thin linen and silk that draped the table, making a long golden corridor here in which I knelt.

Right in front of me, I saw another slave being put into place in the very same manner, but he was large boned and had balls even bigger than mine. He settled down just as I had done, and I saw a man’s fancy boot plant itself on his back.

A gush of silent tears came out of me. I had never been more devoid of tension, more limp, except for my cock of course.

The voices of the party were muted, but I could hear the Queen above me chatting with Lady Eva. Her slippered foot suddenly rested, small and light, on my back.

I lay still, my heart thudding in my ears, my cock, which had been hard all this while, was softening a little, and I became sleepy, wondering if I could hold my position perfectly while I dozed.

Then a delicate hand appeared before me with a bit of fruit, and I heard the Queen speak. “Here, precious Brenn, here.”

I hadn’t eaten since morning, and I licked the bits of fruit from her beautiful and graceful fingers.

I was dozing when a dish with more fruit was given to me to eat. It contained a thick sweet meat sauce and bits of meat that were savory and delicious.

“No hands, darling,” she said. “You eat like a good little slave, like a good little puppy dog.”

I would have done anything she said, any way she said to do it. I had obeyed all the others to be admitted, to be received. I obeyed her because I loved her, because every word from her thrilled me. And when I heard the King’s deep voice above, when I heard him talking to her and laughing in that natural spontaneous way of his, I knew I loved him too. And to think I would become their pony, a pony for Her Majesty and a pony for His Majesty. I had no real idea what it meant to be a pony, but only that I would be theirs, their very own, and I would do all in my power to please them forever.

Ah, Beauty’s Kingdom. I have made it so far. I am at home. I am the pet of the Sleeping Beauty herself. I am here. And nothing beyond this kingdom any longer matters at all.

Hours passed. I slept. The dish was gone. Now and then both the Queen’s feet rested on my back, sometimes only one.

Then I was waked and pulled by my leash, and once again walking as I had before only now the garden seemed livelier than ever.

I felt my cock stirring again, getting hard.

I heard Lady Eva say, “Yes, perfect.” And something feathery touched my cock, and I jumped. “He’s a natural,” she said. “Perfect attitude, perfect responses.”

This seemed a dream of uncommonly vivid intensity, something too palpably exciting to be mere real life.

It was not easy to move up the stone stairs on hands and knees and Lady Eva corrected me several times on grace.

In the Queen’s parlor again, I was led to the side of Lady Eva’s chair.

“Now, spank that luscious little bottom,” said the Queen. “I want to see it bright red.”

What had I done! But then I realized I’d done nothing! I was being enjoyed, not punished.

“Up over my knee, little faun,” said Lady Eva. “And put that pretty chin in my left hand. The Queen wants to see your face. And don’t try to hide it.” A pause. I could feel and hear the paddle in my mind, but in fact all was silence.

I lay across her skirts, over her knee, hands pressing into my neck with feverish pressure, and waited. Her skirts tickled my cock, tortured it.

“Your Majesty, don’t you want to enjoy this little repast yourself?” Lady Eva said.

“I do, but I’ll enjoy it even more,” said the Queen, “if you do it. You do it better than I do, Eva.”

“Your Majesty!”

“No, truly you do.”

“Well, this precious little porkling hasn’t been spanked over the knee yet,” said Lady Eva, as though reflecting. “And I do so love doing it. Brenn, I want perfection now, little boy, do you hear me? Lips sealed, hands clamped to your neck as if they were bound.”

“Yes, madam,” I said, and this unleashed a sob in my throat but my lips didn’t release it. The tears rose in my eyes. This was infinitely more humiliating than standing for a beating with a belt, more humiliating somehow even than being walked on a leash, puppy-style, in the gardens. When my groom, Fane, had done it earlier, it had not registered with me so intensely. It had been abrupt, simple, brief. But now in this perfumed parlor with the Queen herself to watch what was happening, it seemed the greatest test of submission I had yet to endure. Yet it never occurred to me to beg, plead, or try to move away, or to protest in any way. I was delivered utterly to the moment, helpless as if I were bound hand and foot.

Though my eyes were half closed I looked at the fire and wished with all my heart I could see the Queen, at least see her slippers.

It was a paddle, not a belt as I expected it would be.

“Count the spanks, little goatling,” sang Lady Eva.

“Yes, madam, three, four, five, six . . .”

The delicious simmering pain spread through the skin and then deep into my backside, or so it seemed.

“Ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen . . .”

Soon with all my might, I was struggling to lie still, my arms tensing, my fingers rigid as I struggled not to move, not to reach back like a helpless child to shield myself, and I knew my legs and bottom were moving.

At last, Lady Eva stopped. She gave a great sigh.

I lay waiting, my backside so hot surely it must glow in the shadows, my thighs blazing. I had counted some thirty spanks. I was coughing and shivering with sobs. And lips closed or not, I couldn’t keep quiet. It was impossible. My body was spasming with my sobs.

I heard the fire crackling loudly. Suddenly the pain in my sore hindquarters increased. Then softened and spread out all through me in a warm, delicious way. And my tears flowed even more freely.

I belong to you, my queen, I was thinking. If only I could say it, and to you, Lady Eva, who lifted me from the new applicants and brought me here. I only want to please.

“Kneel up now, Brenn, over here, before me,” said the Queen.

At once I obeyed, struggling to withdraw from Lady Eva’s lap without touching her in any disrespectful way. The sensation in my cock doubled and kicked, and throbbed.

I moved forward towards the Queen’s skirts on my hands and knees.

“Closer,” said the Queen. There was the long delicate hand again, with its shining nails, and a lovely perfume rose from her skirts as though they’d been washed in rosewater.

I struggled closer. I was almost touching her.

Her fingers examined my erect cock, and my pubic hair again.

“I’d love to see this all brushed with gold,” she said. “Yet I like the blackness of it, so very black.” She felt of my thigh, inside, and pulled gently at the hair. “Brenn, my precious faun,” she said. “My little satyr.”

She rose suddenly, her skirts sweeping over my face and form, blinding me, and then I watched furtively as she walked to the far wall. She stood against it beside a sideboard with silver candles on it. How shapely and young she appeared with her small waist and her bright yellow hair.

“Come here, on your hands and knees,” she said.

I obeyed, and as I came up before her, she lifted her skirts gracefully to reveal her long wonderfully curved white legs and the golden triangle of her pubic hair. Such a delicate sex, such a sweet tender-looking sex.

“Stand up and take me, little faun!” she said.

I rose up at once. If I had stopped to think, I would have lost my nerve in disbelief.

“Put your arms around my neck and your lips on mine,” she said.

I did as she told me, her high round breasts warm against my chest through the fabric of her gown, her face against mine, soft and tender as a fresh peach. Her mouth tasted of honey.

My cock rammed clumsily at her little cleft, but then I felt her fingers there, parting her lips, guiding me. Such a girlish sex. So shy.

“Bad little boy!” she said. Then the hot sheath had descended on me, wet and small like the sex of a girl.

Her hand clenched my sore backside. I could feel her little crypt throbbing against the whole length of my shaft.

“Kiss me and take me hard, hard as if you’d found me in the street of a besieged town,” she said.

I thrust into her blindly and madly, as hard and as fast as I could, while my lips closed over her, tasting her sweetness, my eyes looking down at her closed eyelids. “Yes,” she said. “Yes, harder, my little woodland god. Come and carry me away with you.”

I rammed her against the wall. I bucked and rode her hard until I suddenly spent, unable to keep back a loud moan, and then she rode the wave with me.

At last I stood, still holding her.

“All right, little boy,” said Lady Eva. “Down on your hands and knees. You’re going to eat your supper now from the little bowl on the hearth. Come.”

The Queen smiled at me. I looked full at her, into her enchanting blue eyes, such pure blue eyes, so trusting, so loving, and then I looked down, bashfully. She kissed me.

I dropped to the floor to obey.

I was so delightfully tired, my head swam. I could smell the food suddenly, beef and gravy.

I crawled towards the steaming dish.

“With your mouth only, piglet,” said Lady Eva. “Every morsel.”

I wrestled with the first few bites and then thought, Why am I holding back, and for whom, and then I began to eat faster.

“That’s it, Brenn. I tell you, Your Majesty, this is the finest little postulant to come through the gates.”

“Yes,” said the Queen, “but I think His Majesty is quite delighted as well with the girl who came with him.”

So the King was with Sybil? I went on eating until I was licking the empty dish. My face was smeared with gravy. But my heart leapt at the thought of Sybil pleasing, Sybil being with the King, Sybil being accepted as I’d been.

Lady Eva pulled me up and wiped at my mouth and chin a little roughly with a napkin. “You will learn to do all this just a little bit better,” she said holding me by a lock of my hair on the top of my head. “But you are a nonpareil.”

vii

I lay in a small bedchamber with no furnishings. A great brawny attendant had carried me back to the Postulants’ Hall, and there a sleepy groom I did not know had bathed me and oiled me with amazing tenderness. He’d stopped to kiss me many times, rubbing oil into my fingers and my toes, and spreading some thick healing compound over my sore backside.

He was so gentle he seemed some sort of spirit in the drowsy quiet night in which all slept.

Then I was placed in this bedroom.

No restraints, no holes in the bed, just Chinese cushions and incense, and a tiny silver lamp with a little shivering flame sending shadows leaping along the low ceiling.

Of course I didn’t dare to touch myself, to try to relive what had happened and use my own hand to relive the pleasure I felt.

When the door opened, I woke with a start, realizing that somehow I must have been sleeping.

Sybil stood in the door. Naked.

Her long black hair hung down covering her breasts. Her pubic hair was a perfect little heart, it seemed, and her face was glowing. She beamed at me.

“You can’t be here. This isn’t real,” I said.

“Oh, I’m here all right,” she said. She dropped down on her hands and knees and crawled into the bed next to me. A sweet fragrance came from her skin and her hair. “Queen Beauty has sent me. She says we’re to have our recreation together until tomorrow.”

“You mean it?” I sat up. “But I thought they would never allow such a thing.”

“Well, in the old days the kingdom did not,” said Sybil. She turned to me, resting on her elbow, and ran her fingers through my hair. She had a glow to her. “Brenn, she adores you.”

I didn’t know what to say.

Her face was animated and flushed and she spoke excitedly, as though she’d traveled to distant lands of the mind since I’d last seen her, as if time itself was meaningless here.

“She says slaves must have time to be with their fellows, as she puts it. She says in the old days they stole such time but she will not have such deceitfulness. She grants many slaves a respite with others. And as we came together, she says we may take our recreation together.”

She went on, her eyes wide, and her lips glistening.

“The Queen says we may do as we like during this time together, that village ponies had that privilege even in their punishment, recreation together, and we’re to have it. She says when it’s time for us to rest up for our duties, they’ll come and they’ll separate us.”

“I never expected it.”

Sybil started kissing me. Her mouth was sweet and fresh, and her hair tickled me as it fell down around me.

“My dear,” I said. “Countless times tonight I’ve been called a little faun, a satyr, a god. But I’m not. I’m only human.”

“Oh, come now, Brenn,” she said.

And sure enough, I was rising to the occasion. I bore down on her, driving my cock into her, my hands holding her arms high above her head, my tongue lapping at her mouth, forcing it open. Not a thought came to my mind, not a flash of memory, only Sybil, as it had been only the Queen and before that only the King, and all fantasies of the past were gone like thin bits of silk caught in a wind and carried heavenward.

Before morning, I held her close and wept as I told her some of what had happened. I couldn’t possibly recount all. She was much calmer recounting her own adventures. She wiped my tears, and she did now and then become dewy eyed and a little soft with feeling, but she spoke more with distant amazement.

Sybil’s introduction to the kingdom had been much the same as mine, though obviously they’d bathed her in compliments since the beginning as to her irresistible attributes, and I didn’t see any reason to go on about the insults I’d received.

The infamous Lord Gregory had also paddled her to test her, and so had another prince whose name she’d never known, and also a “great lady” who had made her perform many servile tasks.

“I never found it so pleasurable before in my life to gather discarded garments from the floor of a room, or arrange slippers in a closet primarily with the use of my teeth.” She laughed. “And Brenn, the lady’s voice was so gentle with me, and loving and comforting all the while. And then do you know what happened, Brenn? I discovered that this ‘great lady’ was none other than the Queen! She put me in her bed and toyed with me as if I were a doll.”

In the great gardens, Sybil had been tethered to a huge X cross for exhibition, along with other new slaves, for the approval of the King.

“Brenn, it was liberating, being bound like that, my wrists up and far apart, my ankles near the base of the arms of the cross! I thought they’d blindfold me as some of the slaves were blindfolded, but they were crying frantically, and I was not. I’d been polished with silver pigment and oil beforehand, and they decorated me with all manner of pretty blossoms. I was there for hours in a swoon. I tell you, it was a positive swoon. Passing lords and ladies touched me, examined me, played with me. It never stopped for very long. I’d fall asleep and then waken to hands stroking me between my legs, soft voices talking of the smallest details of my body, praising my ‘little juices’ and my nipples, making me blush. But I was so sublimely helpless, Brenn. So free. I could twist and struggle and it didn’t matter. Indeed, they seemed to be amused by it. My groom told me to put on a good show for my masters and mistresses, and then laughed and said he needn’t bother to teach me a thing.”

She lay on her arm gazing into my eyes.

“Then this great lord came, the Grand Duke. He was most refined and spoke with such courtesy. I was told later he was the late queen’s uncle. He wanted me taken down for him to play with. He was most insistent in a gentlemanly way. He liked my eyes, my mouth. He wanted to see my bottom. He said he loved the texture of my skin.

“The groom told him he must walk behind the ‘scaffold’ and there he could see my bottom plainly enough. Brenn, when the Grand Duke spanked my bottom it nearly brought me to climax. All the while he had his left hand against the collar around my neck and he was speaking to me in the most cultured voice. ‘Darling, darling,’ he said, ‘you’re the finest of the new stock that I’ve seen. Some slaves are infinitely better than others.’ Brenn, his voice could have brought me to the pinnacle, without the sharp spanks.”

“I understand.”

“But my groom said the Grand Duke would have to wait to have me to himself. The Grand Duke didn’t give up easily, but he was never really rude.”

“Lovely,” I said.

“Brenn, it’s over, all our struggles, our hopes, our dreams. It’s over. We’re here!”

“For six months, Sybil,” I said. “We can be rejected in six months.”

“But they won’t reject us, Brenn. I know they won’t. I faced my worst moment with the Queen, obeying her instructions to straighten her quarters, and when she paddled me I only wanted to please her more! That is the key, Brenn. I love her and want to please her and I do not care precisely why.”

“What do you mean, ‘why’?”

“Do I want to please her because she is beautiful and sweet? Or does she seem beautiful and sweet to me because she is strict and demanding? I don’t know and I don’t care. We were all alone, the Queen and I. No one was there, and the Queen said that I had taught her things. I couldn’t imagine what. It didn’t matter what she said, it was the tone of her voice, her air of easy command, the way she felt of my breasts, cuddled me, kissed me, and punished me. I was so sore by then, and yet I was utterly pliant.”

She paused.

She kissed me lovingly, her tongue playing on my teeth.

“Brenn, you know how big the King is, what a tall man!”

“He’s larger than life in all ways,” I said.

“Yes, well, after the banquet, when I was given to him, I knew a kind of exalted fear. The sound of his deep voice produced a great dreamy and lofty abandon in me. He plunged his cock into me, Brenn, his cock, and it filled me as I’ve never been filled, worked me as I’ve never been worked. Oh, you do not mind my confessing this, do you?”

“Certainly not,” I murmured. “Go on.”

“He never stripped off his clothes or went near the bed, but simply took me as if I were a light, diminutive thing that he could taste effortlessly, pumping into me as he remained standing. And when he was finished with me, he had the groom slip a jeweled red glove over his right hand, and he plunged his fingers into me and touched secret places I hadn’t known existed, as if my most private parts were known to him, like a valley in which he’d wandered many a time. Brenn, I was gasping, groaning, out of my mind. I have never been so thoroughly worked, drained.”

“Yes . . . ,” I said.

“This was after the evening supper in the gardens, as I said, and I hoped and prayed he’d let me sleep somewhere in his chamber, anywhere, but he kissed me goodbye tenderly, and gave me over to Lady Eva and said to her that I must be trained in the Queen’s Stables, Brenn! That I was to be a pony girl for the Queen.

“Lady Eva said this was a great honor and that I’d be taken there very soon. Brenn, what can this mean? I know what the words signify, but what will it be like to become a filly in harness pulling a coach or a chariot!”

“I don’t know, Sybil,” I confessed. “But I’m to find out what it means to be a steed myself.”

“I hope it’s like the X cross in the garden,” she said with a deep sigh. She smiled sleepily and dreamily. “I love being bound! I love the feel of the straps on my wrists and my ankles. I love the fragrance of the leather and gilding. I love the grooms who have firm hands. They don’t all have firm hands.”

“No.”

“It was late, very late, when the King sent me off. The whole castle was quiet. Yet who should come down the passage but the Grand Duke? And Lady Eva allowed him some minutes with me in his chamber! I had not even been bathed since I was with the King, but when Lady Eva told the Grand Duke, he thought it amusing that she even cared.

“I was brought on hands and knees by a leash into his quarters. Why, it had the grandeur of an audience hall, his immense parlor, and he examined me all over, kissing me and squeezing my flesh, and burying his face in my hair. Such an elegant man. He said he was honored to share my little secret bower with the King. When he took me, it was with hard slow thrusts. He’s older, of course. But he was incomparable in his grace, his deliberation, his slow rhythm. He brought out of me all I had left to give when I’d thought I had nothing. And like the King, he was standing while he took me. He called me his sweet little parcel, and his finchling, and he teased me about being a plump little bird with a very red tail. It might have sounded vulgar coming from someone else, ‘tail.’ I mean such a common word! But from him it sounded affectionate and tantalizing to me.

“He did spank me a little, but then Lady Eva was standing by, and the great clock in his parlor struck the hour and he let me go.”

“Hmmm, I wish I had seen him,” I said, “known who he was. Sybil, you do realize the nature of this paradise, don’t you, that there are all kinds of strength, all flavors of mastery.”

“Yes, darling, and he was such a distinguished man!”

“Yes, an older distinguished man.”

“And then the King and the Queen and . . .” She sighed.

“Yes, all of them.”

“What do I want, Brenn?” she asked. “Do I want to be the Queen’s filly or do I want to be the Grand Duke’s little finchling with a very red tail?”

“Maybe you’ll come to be both, Sybil,” I said. I snuggled against her, felt her hot breasts pulsing against my chest, her hand playing idly on my back.

“Brenn, do you think anyone will come looking for us?” she asked.

I laughed. It woke me out of my drowsiness to laugh. “I don’t care if someone comes looking for me,” I said.

“Nor do I, but I asked Lady Eva about it before she gave me over to be bathed. She said the King and Queen would never hear such requests. No one looking for us would get past the gates. I was so glad to hear this.”

“They’ll simply disown us, perhaps,” I said. “Again, I don’t care. I’ve cared about a multitude of things in the last twenty-four hours, but about that I do not care.”

She was silent. I opened my eyes. She had finally dozed off, and slept peacefully and deeply. I touched her lips carefully with my fingers. Sweet Sybil.

viii

The following evening we were anointed in the Goddess Grove. We’d spent the day being measured, tested in many ways, and trained in simple deportment, how to answer any and all questions with modesty and respect, and how to eat and fetch with our teeth and not our hands. We were together some of the time and at other times not. We were given potions to drink and studied for our behavior afterwards. One potion enflamed me so miserably that I wept. Another potion made me sleep at once. In a yard, we were made to trot in a circle around a central pillar and spanked hard as we did it, and then we were groomed meticulously, our nails being trimmed. And I was shaved more than once by the gentlest barbers. But not my pubic hair or any body hair. My pubic hair was carefully groomed, fluffed, even curled a bit here and there, though it was curly enough already.

At last at dark, we were assembled with ten other new slaves to be anointed.

The Goddess Grove was venerable, ancient, we were told. It had fallen into ruin in the old kingdom, but our new monarchs had restored it.

Our procession moved silently through the great gardens and then out and down a broad path towards it with lighted torches. Many lords and ladies watched.

It was a place of thick soft grass and abundant flowers.

A great half circle of arches in the grove held some twelve antique statues—some broken, some whole—of gods and goddesses. Flickering lamps illuminated each of these figures or groupings. I knew Aphrodite spanking her disobedient Cupid with a sandal, and Dionysius and the great god Pan. I knew Apollo as he tried to capture Daphne. And Priapus, yes. Others I could not identify. The grass was cool and torches were flaring everywhere, but the light was shadowy and an air of mystery enveloped us.

The King and Queen came into the grove and received each of us by name, for kisses and embraces, and we were prompted to repeat our vows to serve in our own words. Sybil was positioned some distance from me, but I got a good glimpse of her and she looked glorious, her hair never more lustrous and beautifully groomed with flowers and jewels.

Then as the Lord High Chamberlain held the oils for the King, we were anointed as slaves of the realm, by the King’s thumbprint on our foreheads, and the Queen decorated our heads with green garlands. Lady Eva came forward to anoint our private parts and claim them for the pleasure of the realm as indeed our entire persons were claimed. There was the strong sweet smell of gardenias and lilies everywhere. And we were made to kneel down before our sovereigns to receive their final blessing.

The King wished us a long life in the kingdom and reminded us of our protections and promises. His voice was natural and sincere as if he trusted completely to the words themselves. There was no cloying artificiality.

“Tomorrow,” said my groom as he led me away, “you’ll be a plaything of the King. And mark you scramble to obey his slightest command. To be the King’s pet is a great honor.”