You open your eyes

“This has been so hard for you," he says. "You could not even imagine these things happening to you. And you are red with shame, and shaking with fear, and you believe perhaps it’s one of the dreams you dreamed in your hundred years. But it is real, Beauty; and it is only the beginning! You think I have made you my princess, but I've only started. The day will come when you can see nothing but me, as if I were the sun and the moon… when I mean all to you, food, drink, the air you breathe. Then you will truly be mine, and these first lessons... and pleasures," he smiles, "will seem like nothing."

He bends over you. You lay awry still, gazing up at him.

“Now,” the prince says, “we need to continue your training in how to be both a princess and pleasing to your master.” He ties two of your silk scarves to the posts at the head of the bed, and creates slip-knot loops in the free ends. “Get on your knees on the bed here, and place your hands in these, my Beauty, so that the lesson can continue.”