Beauty’s Kingdom (Sleeping Beauty #4)(61)
Author: Anne Rice

iv

It was a magnificent open coach, plated in embossed silver, with two facing seats, and an elevated place for the driver. Nine ponies, three across in three rows, were being harnessed to pull it.

Samuel, or Samantha, the Queen’s new female groom, would be that driver. Seems different voices called her different names, including Sammy and Sam. In her black velvet male garb, she looked smart and beautiful like a very tall boy of tender age with her black hair as long as many a page. She had high cheekbones and sensuous lips. She certainly carried herself like a man.

Harnessed and decorated, Sybil was ushered to the last row of the team, the countless little bells ringing between her legs and in the horse’s tail, the chains that connected her breasts shivering and flashing in the light as she looked down at them.

Like all the other ponies, she’d been fitted with gold plumes attached to her head harness. Gold rosettes adorned her many buckles and hooks. And her breasts had been more lavishly decorated for the royal team. Large gold rings had been pasted around each breast, forcing the breast itself a little higher on her chest. And the gold rings around each nipple were affixed with a stronger paste so that they more securely held the strands of gold chain that connected each breast. Sybil had never been so aware of all the parts of her body as she was now with the phallus in her anus and in her vagina, and the many straps binding her. Even the boots caressing her ankles, like fingers squeezing her ankles, and the leather halfway up her calves made her thighs feel naked and visible to her in her own mind.

When her hands were gloved in very tight leather she was astonished at how this added to the racing sensations she felt. The gloves covered the underside of her fingers and palms but on top they were artfully cut open to reveal the skin on the back of her fingers and hands.

Pushed firmly into place by Georgette she was told to put her gloved hands on the smooth bar in front of her. She and all the nine ponies, three abreast, would push the coach by means of the bars. And her wrists were firmly manacled to them. Cressida was right beside her.

“Obey your reins,” said Georgette. “Sammy tolerates nothing! When she jerks the reins, you lift your head and you turn as she directs you. The entire team will be turning. The lead fillies are the Queen’s favorites. They know what they are doing. They know the way too. You won’t find it hard. But don’t you think for a minute Sammy won’t see you individually as well as each one of all the others! You’re on trial with this run, Sybil. Cressida, you too. Look sharp. Disappoint the Queen and I shudder to think.”

Smack came the paddle on her thighs over and over until Sybil was gasping, sobbing behind the inevitable bit, and jumping in place. Then reaching past her, Georgette went to work on Cressida. “Chin up, girl!”

It seemed to Sybil that all the team was aglitter with their lovely decorations sparkling in the light of the torches that lined the yard and the road. The sky was still light—a lovely shade of violet sprinkled with faint stars—and indeed a great sunset lay across the west in fading ribbons of crimson and purple.

How beautiful it seemed, as if Sybil had never noticed it before. And Princess Lucinda appeared so distinctive and pretty as she slowly inspected the entire team, her gray velvet shimmering in the light, her quick hazel eyes passing over all straps, buckles, upturned faces, nipples, boots.

And it is happening, Sybil thought. It is real. I am here. How many times in my dreams did I imagine such things as I lay in Brenn’s arms, but it was never the same, those imaginings, no never enough, no, the pale shadow of what is real. Now I am in the kingdom, I am part of it, part of the things I imagined! A great swelling pride rose in her mingling with the tormenting pleasure between her legs. She felt safe among the other ponies. She felt utterly cradled by the entire equipage, and hearing the crack of a whip over her head, she lifted her chin and stamped her horseshoed feet.

“Remember your lessons of this afternoon, little ones!” cried Georgette and the team was off.

If only I could see the Queen in the carriage behind me, thought Sybil, but she could not, though quite suddenly she realized she could hear the King’s ringing laughter and a mingling of others laughing too. Yes, an open coach with two bench seats and nine girls to pull it. The King was there too.

Run, little ponies run, she thought, and they were indeed running and she was with them, the cool air moving over her sizzling skin. The phalluses ground into her with every jogging movement, every marching or trotting step. She loved it. Loved the straps pulling, and the jerk of the reins reminding her to keep her head high.

The grand equipage moved towards the great gleaming battlements of the castle and she looked up to see the banners streaming in the wind! My kingdom, she thought, Beauty’s Kingdom and I am part of it.

But when she saw the crowds all along both sides of the road—as they moved past the castle and out into the country—a hot shame flooded her. I can’t be seen like this by all these people, she thought, but then she was being seen, that was the great wonder of it—as it had been in the gardens last night—and there was nothing she could do to escape the sublime coercion to which she’d committed herself, nothing whatsoever, and she strained with all her might to raise her knees as high as Cressida beside her or the girl ahead with the swaying mass of blond hair. She strained to arch her back and display her breasts, the chains and their tiny bells jangling sweetly, and she pushed at the bar eagerly with both hands.

The whip cracked above again and again.

As they moved well clear of the castle, the crowd changed from highborn lords and ladies out for an evening stroll perhaps to the villagers and the many guests prowling the kingdom, and again the shame brought a flood of tears from beneath her blindfold to see simple peasant men watching with folded arms, women in aprons, and even naked slaves made to kneel beside them like puppies on leash.

Sybil’s throat began to burn. She was panting. But then mercifully the team slowed and Sammy’s voice rang out: “Team, slow trot.”

At once she was able to breathe more freely and a lovely relaxation coursed through her. The road was soft earth now. The horseshoes made no clatter but rather a dull thumping. Massive forests rose to meet the luminous lavender sky on either side.

But the flickering roadside torches—and the eager spectators—never seemed to go away.

What a spectacle we must be, Sybil thought, and again her pride surged. Her nipples throbbed, and indeed it seemed her breasts were actually swelling with the desire that tormented her.

The team was allowed to walk slowly for a long while, and those who’d come to admire it now enjoyed quite a careful and close look. Never had she felt so deliciously exposed, so completely delivered of all will and resistance. It was a grand sensation to strain against the harnesses in vain as she moved on. She did not know what tantalized her the most, the bit, or her arms strapped behind her back, or the boots so tight around her ankles and calves.

The voices of the Queen and the King mingled in Sybil’s ears, but she could not make out the words, or the words of those laughing and murmuring along the sides of the road. People were bowing now to the royal majesties and more than one man or woman shouted out, “Long live our king and queen!”

At one point the spectators not only bowed but broke into applause, apparently for the beauty of the coach and its fillies. Sybil could only imagine how the King and Queen must be waving to all.

Full darkness descended soundlessly on the woods, but the torches illuminated the road up ahead, and at last the great hulk of a handsome manor house came into view. Its many windows blazed with light.

Sybil was ready for a rest as the ponies slowly brought the coach to the entrance. She struggled to see those who had come out to greet the arriving royal guests. There was the mighty golden-haired Prince Tristan, lovingly arrayed in green silk, and the alluring Prince Alexi, always in burgundy, it seemed, both of whom she knew well on sight from her induction. Was that Lady Eva?

They were gone from her sight now as the coach behind her stopped.

Over her own panting breaths and those of the other slaves, she heard the eager greetings—the Queen’s sweet and affectionate voice, and the King’s obvious good humor, and that other voice, Lady Eva, of course.

Then the whip cracked again and the team was off at a brisk trot, circling the gray stone walls to move towards the brightly lighted stables against the backdrop of the black forest.

All ponies were ushered into stalls, but no harnesses were really undone. What grooming came now to attend without disturbing all the elaborate adornments and Sybil tried feverishly to press her legs together before anyone caught her. The phallus inside her felt deliciously large and hard, but she could not crush hard enough against it to satisfy herself. A groom was upon her, buckling her gloved hands on her back. A bowl of wine was given her to lap, and her face was wiped clean and patted gently even as she drank.

When the pillow was put before her she lay her head down carefully not to dislodge the bit or to push or pull the many straps. In the gloom of the stable she could scarcely make out the polished wooden side of her stall.

Her body ached for pleasure, for satisfaction, oh, for anything to alleviate the hunger in her loins, even to be spanked, but this was not to be.

As the grooms massaged her naked bottom and legs, she realized they were talking about a special spectacle, as they called it, “the King’s little puppy,” who had been in the coach and taken into the manor.