Publisher: Plume (Penguin)
Original Release:1983, re-released 2012
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From bestselling author Anne Rice, writing as A.N. Roquleaure. In the traditional folktale of 'Sleeping Beauty,'
the spell cast upon the lovely young princess and everyone in her
castle can only be broken by the kiss of a Prince. It is an ancient
story, one that originally emerged from and still deeply disturbs the
mind's unconscious. Now Anne Rice's retelling of the Beauty story
probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by
exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince
reawakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beauty's
complete and total enslavement to him as Anne Rice explores the world
of erotic yearning and fantasy in a classic that becomes, with her
skillful pen, a compelling experience.
THE CLAIMING OF SLEEPING BEAUTY
Chapter
1 Excerpt
Anne Rice
The Prince had all his young life
know the story of Sleeping Beauty, cursed to sleep for a hundred years, with
her parents, the King and Queen, and all of the Court, after pricking her finger
on a spindle.
But he did not believe it until he
was inside the castle.
Even the bodies of those other
Princes caught in the thorns of the rose vines that covered the walls had not
made him believe it. They had come
believing it, true enough, but he must see for himself inside the castle.
Careless with grief for the death
of his father, and too powerful under his mother’s rule for his own good, he
cut these awesome vines at their roots, and immediately prevented them from
ensnaring him. It was not his desire to
die so much as to conquer.
And picking his way through the
bones of those who had failed to solve the mystery, he stepped alone into the
great banquet hall.
The sun was high in the sky and
those vines had fallen away, so the light fell in dusty shafts from the lofty
windows.
And all along the banquet table,
the Prince saw the men and women of the old Court, sleeping under layers of
dust, their ruddy and slack faces spun over with spider webs.
He gasped to see the servants
dozing against the walls, their clothes rotted to tatters.
But it was true, this old tale.
And, fearless as before, he went in search of the Sleeping Beauty who must be
at the core of it.
In the topmost bedchamber of the
house he found her. He had stepped over
sleeping chambermaids and valets, and, breathing the dust and damp of the
place, he finally stood in the door of her sanctuary.
Her flaxen hair lay long and
straight over the deep green velvet of her bed, and her dress in loose folds
revealed the rounded breasts and limbs of a young woman.
He opened the shuttered
windows. The sunlight flooded down on
her. And approaching her, he gave a soft
gasp as he touched her cheek, and her teeth through her parted lips, and then
her tender rounded eyelids.
Her face was perfect to him, and
her embroidered had fallen deep into the crease between her legs so that he
could see the shape of her sex beneath it.
He drew out his sword, with which
he had cut back all the vines outside, and gently slipping the blade between
her two breasts, let it rip easily through the old fabric.
Her dress was laid open to the hem,
and he folded it back and looked at her.
Her nipples were as rosy pink as were her lips, and the hair between her
legs was darkly yellow and curlier than the long straight hair of her head
which covered her arms almost down to her hips on either side of her.
He cut the sleeves away, lifting
her ever so gently to free the cloth, and the weight of her hair seemed to pull
her head down over his arms, and her mouth opened just a little bit wider.
He put his sword to one side. He removed his heavy armor. And then he lifted her again, his left arm
under her shoulders, his right hand between her legs, his thumb on the top of
her pubis.
She made no sound; but if a person
could moan silently, the she made such a moan with her whole attitude. Her head fells towards him, and he felt the
hot moisture against his right hand, and laying her down again, he cupped both
of her breasts, and sucked gently on one and then the other.
They were plump and firm, these
breasts. She’d been fifteen when the
curse struck her. And he bit at her
nipples, moving the breasts almost roughly so as to feel their weight, and then
lightly he slapped them back and forth, delighting in this.
His desire had been hard and almost
painful to him when he had come into the room, and now it was urging him almost
mercilessly.
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 her on the 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.
The Story Continues in Books 2 & 3
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