The orgasm broke loose and she felt her empty vagina gaping hungrily and desperately as the pleasure flooded up through her and the blood throbbed in her face.

They knew it, they saw it, they could not conceivably think it was anything but her spending and spending and her choking sobs became low hoarse cries.

“Take her,” said the Queen.

Prince Alexi turned her.

“On the bed.”

She was forced across the room and then down on the jeweled red coverlet. A thousand prickly jewels or bits of gold bit into her sore flesh. Prince Alexi pushed her up on the bed, and mounted her, without removing his clothes, only lifting his tunic to reveal his organ hard and ready, and then it plunged into her, into the hopeless aching emptiness, and she felt herself flooded with relief, riding yet another magnificent wave, spending yet again.

Her mouth was open and the cries were ripped out of her.

“Hush, little one,” he said. “Hush.” His lips covered hers and he took her cries into himself as he drove his cock harder and harder into her.

Unable to stop herself she wrapped her naked legs around him and rode up off the coverlet with him only to be wondrously slammed down once more.

She wanted to cry, Yes, and yes, and maybe she did. She didn’t know. He sucked the breath out of her, his dark hair hanging down onto her face.

Finally, he came, and she came again with him, and they shuddered together until it was finally over, and she felt him rising, felt his soft wondrous weight taken away from her, and for a moment she felt cold, not because the room was cold, but because it was quiet and he was gone.

When she opened her eyes she saw the Queen standing at the window by the fireplace looking out into the night.

“Oh, my queen,” Blanche cried, unable to restrain herself. And without thinking, she rushed off the bed and fell on her knees at the Queen’s side. “I did so want to please you, truly I did. Oh, please forgive me if I’ve displeased you.”

“Quiet, Blanche, quiet,” said Alexi in a crooning voice as he approached. She felt his hands on her shoulders, gentle but firm. “Your Majesty, no one has ever been able to teach this little girl to restrain herself and her outbursts of devotion.”

The Queen turned and looked down. The light of the fire was behind her so her face was dark, and the light played in her golden hair.

Blanched sobbed in defeat, her hands not behind her neck as they should have been but covering her face.

“You did please me, darling,” said the Queen in the warmest sweetest voice.

Blanche felt the Queen’s fingers gently moving her own hands away from her face. And now her face was lifted and she knew that the shadowy figure was smiling at her though she could hardly see the features of her face.

“You have pleased me very much, precious Blanche,” she said. “I shall always love you, love you especially for this night. Now stand and come into my arms.”

Blanche could not quite believe this was happening because her heart was filled with happiness such as she had seldom known. For Tristan to embrace her in this manner gave her the greatest pleasure, but this was the Queen, the new queen.

She embraced the Queen as tightly as she could, holding back nothing, covering the Queen’s face in kisses as the Queen kissed her, her breasts pressing against the Queen’s breasts, her pubis pressing against the Queen’s skirts. The Queen’s hands cupped Blanche’s head, then moved to her shoulders, and her breasts, twisting her nipples, and the kisses became ever more ardent, ever more desperate. The Queen was moaning. Blanche felt the Queen’s hand on her hand, pressing Blanche’s fingers between her legs though the heavy fabric of the Queen’s skirts protected her. Suddenly, madly, Blanche lifted the Queen’s skirts and fell on her knees kissing the Queen’s wet pubic lips, dipping her tongue into the Queen’s hot salty vagina. She could hear the Queen sighing. Blanche clutched at the Queen’s naked bottom and worked her with all her might, her tongue plunging ever deeper until the Queen came, came with loud sweet moans that caused the floodgates in Blanche to break again as she pressed against the Queen’s legs.

Drowsily, contentedly, ready for whatever punishment she deserved for her boldness, Blanche felt herself being gently pushed away, petted, caressed, yet pushed away, and she sank down at the Queen’s feet.

It seemed a long time passed. She crouched with her eyes shut tight, waiting.

“You will get better at it,” said Prince Alexi to the Queen. “You will get better at everything.”

“I know,” said the Queen under her breath. “But if only, if only I could understand . . .”

“All will be revealed in time,” said Alexi with even-greater gentleness. “You’ve only just begun.”

Blanche felt the Queen’s hands on her head. “Come, dearest, come into my arms again,” said the Queen.

Blanche rose at once, and held the Queen as tightly as she dared. Oh, sweet, sweet beyond any caresses she’d ever enjoyed, ever known, this. Sweet and intoxicating.

“Oh, don’t worry, Blanche,” said the Queen in her ear. “Don’t bother with our words. I am new to taking command in this way, in this secret and erotic way.” The Queen’s thumbs fondled Blanche’s cheeks. “I do so love you, darling. You have been the best of teachers. Now kiss me again with all your heart.”

i

A full nine months had passed since King Laurent and Queen Beauty had been crowned at Bellavalten, and all the world, it seemed, knew of their proclamations. How many eager princes, princesses, lords and ladies, and eager would-be slaves had journeyed to Bellavalten—from all over the European lands, and from the lands to the south, and from those to the east, and from those to the north, and from the Hungarian lands and the Russian lands, and from the lands of exotic climes—part history and part legend?

Those seeking slaves in my own kingdom had met with many highborn applicants, and those proud and beautiful peasants who had dreams of being accepted.

One day, wrapped in a hooded cloak, I had stood about in the shadows and watched the eager neophytes as they hovered outside the inn where the emissaries of Bellavalten were receiving, wondering what fair hair and forms were concealed by the heavy garments that so well concealed face and rank. “Beauty’s Kingdom,” that is how they referred commonly to Bellavalten. “Beauty’s Kingdom.” And the legend of the Sleeping Beauty and her new realm was the talk of the land.

I would have left that very day for Beauty’s Kingdom, had it been possible.

But perhaps the many tasks that had delayed me had been a blessing. For as I reached Bellavalten now riding ahead of the small caravan of wagons and mounted servants that had accompanied me, I realized that Laurent and Beauty, my old and beloved friends, had made great progress in reviving the kingdom and I would see it—not in its early days of resurrection and inevitable confusion—but now in full bloom, so to speak, as every innkeeper I’d encountered in the last fortnight had told me.

Whatever the case, I’d had little choice but to delay my return.

My older brother, the King now for some twenty years, was not eager to see me pursue my dreams, but he had finally accepted it murmuring that he’d always been against my being sent to Bellavalten in the first place. He’d served in Bellavalten long before me, it was true, but only for a year, whereas I had been there many years, when one included my time in the sultanate. Yes, it had been a strange and ecstatic pleasure, all that, he said, and much the fashion in those days. Yet why did I wish to go back? I couldn’t explain. He had tasks for me to complete before I was allowed to depart—visits to make, bequests to bestow, cousins to be received, and attendance at conferences that went on forever—and I set out to satisfy him without argument, which had always been my way.

You might say I’d learned patience during my time as a naked slave. But in truth, I was patient before I ever knew what it meant to be the pampered plaything of alluring ladies and lords. I was not by nature controlled or disciplined, no. That I had learned over time.

Finally, my brother had given me his blessing, endowed me with abundant gifts and gold, and after a final week of weepy and riotous banqueting and endless farewells, I’d at last set out, confident that I might come back home if I didn’t find the new realm to my liking.

Of course I brought my trusted servant Fabien with me—the only being in this world who had ever been allowed to see me naked since I’d left the far-off realm of my old friend Lexius, former steward to the Sultan and slave to Her Late Majesty Queen Eleanor.

There wasn’t a chance that I wouldn’t find the new realm to my liking!

Two long letters from King Laurent had come to me within the first month of the kingdom’s rebirth, filled with amazing warmth and friendly words, just as if he were speaking to me, though no doubt some scribe had been taking his dictation, and I could almost hear and see my old friend whom I had known so briefly but with such pleasure. These letters had been brimming with his enthusiasm for all the new innovations and expansion of the old kingdom, and they had set my blood to simmering at once.

And I had received a letter as well from my beloved Prince Alexi, whose brother’s kingdom bordered on our own, and he too had said only momentous things about Bellavalten where he now resided. He had also confided that very likely Lexius would be returning—Lexius whom I knew and loved above all others from the time of my service.