Free The Empress's New Lingerie and Other Erotic Fairy Tales by Hillary Rollins

be put to death! Of course she knew nothing of such alchemy—her father had simply been bragging to earn favor with the king so as to protect the family from the wrath of the court. But the miller’s daughter had no choice. She had to try to work the magic her lord and master desired.
    With a prayer in her heart she lifted a handful of straw to the spindle and began to work the wheel’s pedal. The dull “clang” of iron rang out as her terrible manacles collided against each other. The weight of the clamps on her nipples, pulling as they did against the delicate flesh of her swaying breasts, made each congested tip darken and throb. Minutes turned into hours as the unhappy vassal spun and spun and spun. But, alas, there was no gold. Eventually, spent with her efforts, she collapsed upon the wooden pallet and slipped into a dreamless sleep that was as black and glassy as a puddle of ink.

    This time the miller’s daughter was awakened not by the two giant henchmen, but by a strange little man who held a bundle of birch rods tied together into a fearsome switch. As he barked at her, he cut the air with great swoops of the switch like he was wielding a sword against some invisible enemy.
    â€œWench!” cried the fellow. “You have displeased the king! You spin and spin, but there is no gold!”
    The miller’s daughter could not answer, gagged and bound as she was. But she searched the man’s attire for the royal crest and nowhere could she find it. If he was not an official emissary of the king, how did he gain entrance to her cell? And what was his interest in her lot?
    â€œNow you are doomed to die. But before the king puts his chattel to death he first extracts whatever pleasure he likes from their defenseless flanks. For instance, he might force you to swallow his bulging cock for breakfast every morning. Then again, he might simply whip you until he draws blood every night. Or perhaps he’ll hand you over, like nothing but parcel of property, to his gang of depraved courtiers and instruct them to use you as they will. Then he’ll simply sit back and watch you suffer while they bend you over and open you to their collective hands, tongues, and organs. This will be your final mortification before an untimely death.”
    Even with her secret longing to be owned and used thus by a strict, demanding master, the miller’s daughter did not wish to die. The tiny man could see this when he peered into her eyes, the eyes of cornered prey, and he smiled a crooked smile.
    â€œBut I can save you, for I can spin straw into gold, and this very night I will turn that whole cartload of worthless hay into a king’s ransom before the first light of dawn! I ask only two things in exchange for my services. First, you must allow me to punish you for your sins and insufficiencies. I would so enjoy administering proper corrective discipline to the shining buttocks of a worthless trollop like yourself.”
    So this was his gambit: He would replace the king’s violence with his own! It was one thing to prostrate herself before a worthy master, to turn her whole being over to the lacerations of a king’s whip because she was so lowly and he so grand, she so in need of moral and physical correction and he ordained by dint of his superiority, rank, and power to deliver her into that corrective state. But to simply be tortured by this dwarf, this birch-brandishing homunculus, for no purpose whatsoever except to bring him some sort of prurient pleasure—that was too much to bear! Still, she had no choice. To refuse him was to die. With a heavy heart, she nodded her consent.
    â€œExcellent. Now, for the second part of our little bargain: If, because of my efforts at the spinning wheel, the king decides to make you his wife, you must agree to give me your first-born child.”
    To this the miller’s daughter easily agreed, for what were the chances an exalted king would