she could have tried harder.
  Did he want her to cry out more when she was spanked?  She was uncertain.  Just 
thinking of that girl spanking her in front of everyone made her cry again, and she knew 
that the Prince would see her tears, and he might wonder why now, when she'd been told to 
stand still at the foot of the bed, she was crying.
  This is my life, she told herself, trying to calm herself.  He has awakened me and 
claimed me.  My parents are restored, their Kingdom is theirs again, and more 
significantly, life is theirs again, and I belong to him.  She felt a great relaxation 
when she thought these things and a stirring in herself that seemed to make her sore and 
throbbing buttocks feel suddenly warmer.  The pain made her so shamefully aware of that 
part of her body!  But then as she squeezed her eyes against these soft and slow tears, 
she looked down at her swelling breasts and the tiny hard nipples and felt that same 
awareness of herself there too, just as if he'd slapped her breasts, which he hadn't done 
in a great while, and she felt softly bewildered.
  My life, she struggled to understand.  And she remembered that in the afternoon in the 
warm forest when she had been walking before his horse, she had felt her own long hair on 
her buttocks, brushing them as she walked ahead of him, and she had wondered if she 
looked beautiful to him, and she had wished that he would pick her up then, and kiss her 
and caress her.  Of course she had not dared to look back.  She couldn't imagine what he 
would have done had she been so foolish as to do that, but the sun had thrown their 
shadows ahead of them and she had seen the shadow of his profile, and felt such a 
pleasure that she was ashamed of it, and her legs had felt weak and there had been the 
oddest feeling in her, something she had never known in her earlier life, though perhaps 
in her dreams.
  She was awakened now, at the foot of his bed, by his low but firm command.
  "Come here, my darling."  He motioned for her to kneel before him.
  "This shirt is to be opened down the front, and you will learn to do so with your lips 
and teeth, and I will be patient with you," he said.
  She had thought it would be the paddle.  And, very relieved, she went almost too 
quickly to obey, pulling the thick tie that closed the shirt at his throat.  His flesh 
felt warm and smooth to her.  Men's flesh.  So different, she thought.  And she quickly 
pulled loose the second tie and the tired.  She had a struggle with the fourth which was 
at his waist, but he didn't move, and then when she was finished, she bowed her head, her 
hands as before on the back of her neck and waited.
  "Open my breeches," he said to her.
  Her cheeks flamed; she could feel it.  But again she didn't hesitate.  She pulled the 
fabric forward over the hook until the hook slipped out and let it go.  And now she could 
see his sex, bulging there, painfully twisted.  She wanted suddenly to kiss it, but she 
didn't dare and was shocked at her impulse.
  He had lifted it free.  It was hard.  She thought of it between her legs, filling her, 
rough and too big for her virginal opening, and of that terrible pleasure which had 
suffused her and wasted her the night before, and she knew she was blushing furiously.
  "Now go to the stand in the corner," he said, "and bring back the basin with water in 
it."
  She almost scurried across the floor.  Several times in the Inn he had told her to move 
fast, and though she had hated it at first, she now did it instinctively.  She brought 
the basin in both hands and set it down.  There was a cloth in the water.
  "Wring out the cloth tightly," he said, "and bathe me quickly."
  She did as she was told at once, staring in amazement at his sex, its length, its 
hardness, and the tip of it with its tiny opening.  She had been so sore from it 
yesterday, yet that pleasure had paralyzed her.  Never had she guessed at such a secret.
  "Now, do you know what I want of you?"  the Prince said gently.  His had lovingly 
stroked her cheek, lifting her hair back.  She ached to look at him.  She wished so much 
he would command her to look into his eyes.  It terrified her, but after the first 
instant it was so wondrous to her, his expression, that handsome and almost delicate 
face, and those black eyes that seemed to accept no compromise.
  "No, my Prince, but whatever it is..." she started.
  "Yes, darling...you are being very good.  I want you to take it in your mouth, stroke 
it with your tongue and your lips."
  She was shocked.  She had never thought of this.  She thought suddenly, cruelly of who 
she had been, a Princess, and she thought of all her young life before she had fallen 
asleep, and she almost gave a little whimper.  But this was her Prince who was commanding 
her, not some dreadful person she was being given to as a wife who might have demanded 
this of her.  She closed her eyes and took it into her mouth, feeling its huge size, its 
hardness.
  It nudged at the back of her throat, and she pushed up and down on it as the Prince 
guided her.
  The taste of it was almost delicious; and it seemed a salty liquid in tiny droplets 
came out into her mouth, and then she stopped because he had said it was enough.
  She opened her eyes.
  "Very good, Beauty, very good," said the Prince.
  And she could tell he was in pain with his need suddenly.  It made her fell proud, and 
there was in her, even in her helplessness, a sense of power.
  But he had risen and was guiding her to her feet.  And she realized as she straightened 
her legs that that debilitating pleasure had caught hold of her.  She felt for a moment 
that she couldn't stand, but to disobey him was unthinkable.  Quickly she stood straight, 
hands behind her neck, and she struggled to keep her hips from going into some slight 
humiliating movement.  Could he see it?  She bit her lip again and felt its soreness.
  "You've done marvelously well today, you've learned so very much," he said tenderly.  
His voice could be so soft and yet so firm at the same time.  It made her feel almost 
drowsy; that pleasure was melting inside of her.
  But then she saw that he was reaching for the paddle behind him.  She let out a little 
gasp before she could stop herself, and she felt his hand on her arm, taking her hands 
away from the back of her neck, and turning her around.  She wanted to cry out, "What 
have I done?"
  But his voice came low, crooning in her ear.
  "And I've learned a very important lesson myself, that pain softens you, makes it 
easier for you.  You are infinitely more malleable from the spanking given you in the Inn 
than you were before it."
  She wanted to shake her head, but she didn't dare.  The thought of all those who had 
seen her spanked tormented her.  She had been turned so those at the windows could see 
her buttocks and between her legs, and the soldiers could see her face, and it had been 
excruciating.  Well, it would only be her Prince now.  If only she could tell him, for 
him anything, but those others were such punishment...
  She knew this was wrong.  It was not what he wanted her to think, what he was trying to 
teach her.  But now she couldn't think.
  He was at her side.  He held her chin in his left hand, and he had told her to fold her 
arms behind her back, which was difficult for her.  It was worse than clasping her hands 
behind her neck.  This position arched her body, forced her breasts out, and made her 
breasts and face feel painfully naked.  She moaned slightly as he lifted her hair and