Beauty's Punishment Quotes

“I am such a bad girl," she thought. Yet...”
― Anne Rice, Beauty's Punishment

“A lovely village woman with a pretty red skirt and white ruffled blouse was spanking her slave quite diligently upon a wooden counter, and the lovely face peering through its tears was that of Beauty. She writhed and struggled under the paddle. But I could see she was unfettered, just as I had been last night on the Public Turntable.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“She did not know whether she was longing for the torment or wildly trying to shut it out.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Beauty tried to shut out the sound of the crowd; it was a horrid sound, like that of a great beast coming out of its lair; she knew she was trembling.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Did she long to be hurled downward, away from the high Court of ornate and clever rituals imposed upon her, into some wilderness of disregard where the humiliations and spanking blows would come just as hard and just as fast but with a greater, more savage abandon?”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“In some realm beyond thought, she felt she was not human. The pleasure dissolved the humanity she had known.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“All around was the bright, airy laughter of the attendants.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Locked together, they struggled, and around them in the crowded tent, there was only silence.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Gilt paint lined his eyes, thickened his lashes, defined the startling perfection of his mouth. And his violet-blue eyes burned with an iridescent radiance.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“On every inch of her flesh she felt some new stimulation.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“She was lifted on the great thick cushion, like a treasure.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“It’s but another turn of the wheel,” she said, “and we understand now more keenly what we have always known, since we were made captives.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Be brave and be clever, clever at pretending you are not clever, that you are no more than the most abject little bundles of ever-demonstrable passion.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“You were sent to serve, and serve you shall, in the Palace of the Sultan. And have no doubt, you will treasured by your new Masters. Though the Sultan has many slaves from his own land, you captive Princes and Princesses are a special delicacy of sorts, and a great curiosity.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Pleasure zinged through her like the echo of a plucked lute string.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Your destiny is mingled with a greater renunciation of self.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“When I saw poor, punished Prince Laurent today, I envied him. And he had no loving Master to guide him.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Don’t you long to be loved, don’t you long to have the pain mingled with tenderness?”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“She thought of the Crown Prince. She had not loved him. He made her smile. Lady Juliana had affrighted and disturbed her. The Captain thrilled her, exhausted her, surprised her. Mistress Lockley she secretly liked, for all the dread of her. But that was the extremity of it. She didn’t love them. That, and the glory and excitement of belonging to a grand scheme, to use Tristan’s word, was the village to her.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“My soul is still mine and the only thing a slave can truly possess.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“I saw the great scheme of which I was part, and under the grueling punishment, my soul broke open. My whole existence now, be it on the turntable or in the harnesses, or in my Master’s arms, is an entreaty to be used like the warmth of a fire is used, to be dissolved in the will of others. My Master’s will is the guiding will, and through him I am given to all who witness or desire me.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“It isn’t the Mistress or Master really who puts me in harmony with it, as you said. It’s merely the hardness, the coldness, and the relentlessness. I wanted to be cast down, lost among my punishments. I adore the Captain and I adore my Mistress, but there are other harsher Masters and Mistresses probably in the village.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“He’s a man of mysteries and secrets and strange intensity,” Tristan said. “He will do exactly as he pleases.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“His body seemed almost polished in the dim light of the candles, his golden hair lustrous.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“The sight riveted her even more strongly than it had the night before, from this new perspective.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“She saw his eyes wide and seemingly still, the mouth quivering on the thick leather that bound his head flat to the top of the beam, the bound legs shuddering with the cart’s uneven movement.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“She could feel the reverberation of the drum in her belly. And the steady beat filled her with dread.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“She wanted to talk to him, to tell him how strangely content she was. But then the vision of Tristan was gone, as surely as it had come. She must have been dreaming.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Who was the Princess Lynette who had reached the border, the same tall blond Princess who years before had so tormented Beauty’s beloved Alexi in her little circus performance for the Court at the castle? And where was she now? Clothed and safe in another kingdom? Beauty should envy her, she thought, but she couldn’t.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment

“Beauty was thinking of all she had heard and seen, stimulated against her will by Laurent’s suffering.”
― A.N. Roquelaure, Beauty's Punishment