men who rode after him.
  As he walked his horse through a dense glade where the fallen leaves were thick and red 
and brown beneath him, the Prince tied the rein on his saddle, and with his left hand 
felt the soft hairy little pelt between Beauty's legs, and leaned his face against her 
warm hip, kissing it gently.
  After a while, he pulled her down into his lap, turning her as before so she rested 
against his left arm, and he kissed her red face and brushed the long golden strands of 
her hair away from it, and then he suckled her breasts almost idly as though taking 
little drinks from them.
  "Put your head on my shoulder," he said.  And she inclined to him obediently at once.
  But when he went to sling her over his shoulder again, she gave a little desperate 
whimper.  He did not allow this to stop him.  And having her firmly in place, her ankles 
clasped to his hip, he scolded her lovingly, and gave her several hard spanks with his 
left hand until he heard her crying.
  "You must never protest," he repeated.  "Not with sound, not with gesture.  Only your 
tears may show your Prince what you feel, and never think that he does not wish to know 
what you feel.  Now respectfully, answer me."
  "Yes, my Prince," Beauty whimpered softly.
  He thrilled to the sound of it.
  
  When they came to the small town in the middle of the forest, there was great 
excitement, as everyone had already heard of the enchantment being broken.
  And as the Prince rode into the crooked little street with its high half-timbered 
houses blocking out the sky, people ran to the narrow windows and doorways.  They crowded 
into the cobblestone alleyways.
  Behind him, the Prince could hear his men in hushed voices telling the townspeople who 
he was, that it was their Lord who had broken the enchantment.  The girl he carried with 
him was the Sleeping Beauty.
  Beauty was sobbing softly, her body struggling with these sobs, but the Prince held her 
firmly.
  Finally with a great crowd following him, he arrived at the Inn, and his horse, with 
loud clops, entered the courtyard.
  His page quickly helped him down.
  "We'll stop only for food and drink," said the Prince.  "We can go miles before 
sundown."
  He stood Beauty on her feet and watched with admiration as her hair fell down around 
her.  And he turned her around twice, pleased to see she kept her hands clasped behind 
her neck and her eyes down as he looked at her.
  He kissed her devotedly.
  "Do you see how they all look at you?"  he said.  "Do you feel how they admire your 
beauty?  They are adoring you," he said.  And opening her lips again, he sucked another 
kiss out of her, his hand squeezing her sore buttocks.
  It seemed her lips clung to his as if she were afraid to let him go, and then he kissed 
her eyelids.
  "Now everyone is going to want to have a look at Beauty," the Prince said to the 
Captain of the Guard.  "Bind her hands over her head by a rope from the sign over the Inn 
gate, and let the people have their fill of her.  But no one is to touch her.  They can 
look all they like, but you stand guard and see that no one touches her.  I'll have your 
food sent out to you."
  "Yes, my Lord," said the Captain of the Guard.
  But as the Prince gently gave Beauty over to him, she leaned forward, her lips out to 
the Prince, and he received her kiss gratefully.  "You're very sweet, my darling," he 
said.  "Now be modest and very very good.  I should be very disappointed if all this 
adulation made my Beauty vain."  He kissed her again, and let the Captain have her.
  Then going inside and ordering his meat and ale, the Price watched through the 
diamond-paned windows.
  The Captain of the Guard did not dare touch Beauty, except to put the rope about her 
wrists.  He led her by this to the open gate of the courtyard, and throwing the rope up 
over the iron rod that held the sign of the Inn, he quickly secured her hands above her 
head, so that she was almost on tiptoe.
  Then he motioned for the people to move back, and he stood against the wall with his 
arms folded as they pressed to look at her.
  There were buxom women with stained aprons, and coarse men in breeches and heavy 
leather shoes, and the young well-to-do men of the town in their velvet cloaks with their 
hands on their hips as they eyed Beauty from a distance, unwilling to elbow in the crowd. 
 And several young women, their elaborate white headdresses freshly done up, who had come 
out lifting their hems fastidiously as they looked at her.  
  At first everyone was whispering, but now people began to speak more freely.
  Beauty had turned her face into her arm and let her hair shield her face, but then a 
soldier came out from the Prince and said:
  "His Majesty said to turn her and lift her chin so they might have a better look at 
her."
  An approving murmur went up from the crowd.  "Very very lovely," said one of the young 
men.
  "And this is what so many died for," said an old Cobbler.
  The Captain of the Guard lifted Beauty's chin, and holding the rope above her, said 
gently:
  "You must turn around, Princess."
  "O, please, Captain," she whispered.
  "Don't make a sound, Princess, I beg you.  Our Lord is very strict," he said.  "And 
it's his wish that everyone admire you."
  Beauty, her cheeks flaming, obeyed, turning so the crowd could see her reddened 
buttocks and then again to show her breasts and her sex as the Captain kept his finger 
under her chin lightly.
  It seemed she breathed deeply as though trying to remain very calm.  The young men were 
calling her beautiful and saying her breasts were magnificent.
  "But such buttocks," whispered an old woman nearby.  "You can see that she's been 
spanked.  I doubt the poor Princess did anything much to deserve it."
  "Not much," said a young man near her.  "Except have the most beautiful and pertly 
shaped buttocks imaginable."
  Beauty was trembling.
  Finally the Prince himself came out, ready to leave, and seeing the crowd as attentive 
as before, he himself took the rope down, and holding it like a short leash above 
Beauty's head, he turned her.  He seemed amused by the crowd's grateful nods, and thanks, 
and bows to him; and very gracious in his generosity.
  "Lift your chin, Beauty, I shouldn't have to lift it," he reproved her with a little 
deliberate frown of disappointment.
  Beauty obeyed, her face so red that her eyebrows and eyelashes gleamed golden in the 
sun, and the Prince kissed her.
  "Come here, old man," the Prince said to the old Cobbler.  "Have you ever seen such