He mounted her, parting her legs, giving the white inner flesh of her thighs a soft, deep pinch, and, clasping her right breast in his left hand, he thrust his sex into her.

He was holding her up as he did this, to gather her mouth to him, and as he broke through her innocence, he opened her mouth with his tongue and pinched her breast sharply.

He sucked on her lips, he drew the life out of her into himself, and feeling his seed explode within her, heard her cry out.

And then her blue eyes opened.

“Beauty!” he whispered to her.

She closed her eyes, her golden eyebrows brought together in a little frown and the sun gleaming on her broad white forehead.

He lifted her chin, kissed her throat, and drawing his organ out of her tight sex, heard her moan beneath him.

She was stunned. He lifted her until she sat naked, one knee crooked on the ruin of her velvet gown on the bed which was as flat and hard as a table.

“I’ve awakened you, my dear,” he said to her. “For a hundred years you’ve slept and so have all those who loved you. Listen. Listen! You’ll hear this castle come alive as no one before you has ever heard it.”

Already a shriek had come from the passage outside. The serving girl was standing there with her hands to her lips.

And the Prince went to the door to speak to her.

“Go to your master, the King. Tell him the Prince has come who was foretold to remove the curse on this household. Tell him I shall be closeted now with his daughter.”

He shut the door, bolting it, and turned to look at Beauty.

Beauty was covering her breasts with her hands, and her long straight golden hair, heavy and full of a great silky density, flared down to the bed around her.

She bowed her head so that the hair covered her.

But she looked at the Prince and her eyes struck him as devoid of fear or cunning. She was like those tender animals of the wood just before he slew them in the hunt: eyes wide, expressionless.