True to his word, The Beast checked that Rose remembered the phrase ‘Goody Two Shoes’ the next morning, but over the following days things seemed to return back to normal. Rose presented her cleaning schedule and he approved it, but as she was only doing what she had always done, it didn’t seem like much of a difference. Their lessons together now consisted of discussions about a book called The Meno, which she was expected to read to herself in her own time. It was a sort of a play about virtue and education by a man called Plato. Rose found it interesting and enjoyed talking about it with The Beast, but inside she was clamouring for him to act on their new relationship. She dutifully called him ‘my lord’ whenever his rules required it, and quite often when they did not, but that was the only notable change in their interactions. It was as if she had imagined everything that had happened from her spanking onwards.

She tried a couple of times to flirt with him or act out and earn a punishment, but each time The Beast merely ordered her to stop and be sensible. She supposed she could disobey until he was forced to take sterner action, but that seemed to be against the spirit of their arrangement. In any case, she was happy that they were on good terms again and she didn’t want to antagonise him. Eventually, she could take it no longer and she raised the subject directly at dinner.

“My lord, I was interested to know if you were planning to act on our arrangement in the near future,” she said after a few preliminary pleasantries.

The Beast looked at her questioningly. “Our arrangement?” he asked. “You’ll have to clarify for me. Apart from your residence here, which properly speaking was agreed between myself and your father, there is no arrangement between us.”

“But…” Rose began, “The day after you spanked me you said—”

“The day after I did what?” interrupted The Beast with incredulity. “Rose, I fear your imagination is running away with you. I would never do such a thing. You have become dear to me, in your own way.”

Rose began to object, but The Beast cut her off again, this time with a note of anger in his voice. “I will hear no more of this Rose! It’s a fine thing to be creative, but you must know the difference between reality and fantasy. Now be a good girl and eat up the rest of your vegetables, and we’ll pretend this never happened.”

“Yes, my lord.” Rose turned her attention to the vegetable in question — kale. She disliked it intensely, but she would sooner throw herself into the fireplace than disobey or question The Beast over such a trivial matter. As she worked her way through it, she reflected on The Beast’s attitude. She supposed that he had put it on so that her rape would seem more real, and less like a game, but she was beginning to doubt that theory. Could it really be that she had imagined everything?

If this was part of a game, then it was not to her taste. It was unsettling to have her memory contradicted with such confidence. The Beast had asked her about ‘torture of the spirit’, and she had said she would like to try it. Was this part of that? It wasn’t the shame or humiliation he had mentioned. She had imagined being called names and forced to degrade herself. This odd vertigo was something different. He’d also told her that she should use her special words if ever she was in doubt, but it seemed ridiculous to employ them against what was essentially just a little make-believe. If he was toying with her, then he surely expected her to understand. If she really was deluded, then she couldn’t imagine what his reaction would be to her suddenly blurting out ‘Goody Two Shoes’ for no good reason, and she was quite sure that her explanation would not improve matters.

For several nights after talking things through with The Beast, her memory of his tongue and the anticipation of what was to come had filled her thoughts in bed as she frantically sawed at her clit with her fingers. Now, however, with doubt and frustration as her constant and unwelcome companions, she found herself unable to call the convulsions of pleasure she had only discovered so recently.

Days passed, and in many ways they were some of the happiest Rose had known. The Beast appeared to be in high spirits, and while he continued to be strict with her, he seemed notably more at peace with himself than she had previously seen him. They laughed and joked, they talked seriously about Plato in her lessons, they enjoyed The Beast’s delicious cooking together and at dinner he allowed her to have a small glass of wine to accompany it. At times she would forget altogether about what had passed between them. It was starting to seem like a dream. Perhaps it had been.

One evening after dinner Rose was teaching The Beast to play Cribbage, having discovered cards and a pegging board in the drawer of a guest room. “You’re making this up,” The Beast was saying.

“I’m not!” She shouted, laughing. “If you have a knave the same suit as the turn-up, you score one for his nib. I told you that.”

“That’s absurd,” he grumbled. “Why for his nib? What does that mean?”

“It’s just what you say,” explained Rose. “No, don’t gather the cards up yet, I still have my box.”

“Ah, yes,” he said with resignation.

Rose turned over a few facedown cards on the table and laughed happily. “Fifteen two, fifteen four, and eight for a double run is twelve! I win again.”

The Beast rolled his eyes while gathering the cards. “I think that’s enough for this evening,” he said. “You should do your study before bedtime. Remember that tomorrow we’re discussing the myth of Aristophanes.”

“Yes, my lord,” said Rose, rising to go to the library.

They’d moved on to another book in their lessons. This one was about the nature of love. So far the characters had discussed love’s ability to inspire sacrifice, and a distinction between good and bad types of love, but her reading for the evening turned out to be very different. It was a strange comic parable told by a clownish drunkard about how humans had once been eight-limbed, two-headed beings, who having been split apart were now forever searching for their lost other half. Once she had finished reading she glanced at the candelabra, having learned to estimate the time by how far her candles were burnt down. Seeing that it was almost ten, she got up, took a candle from the desk and left. She was not sure if The Beast would allow her any grace on being up past her bedtime, so she always made a point of being in her bedroom before the clock struck the hour.

This had been a good day, she thought as she climbed the stairs. Her time with The Beast was fun and fulfilling. Maybe she was wrong to imagine there could be more between them. The book he had her reading made love into a puzzle to be solved. She had thought that she and The Beast fit together like a carpenter’s joint: two shapes designed to join perfectly in a strong bond. But the story she had just read made that idea seem ridiculous. Where other characters talked learnedly of how true love stemmed from a desire for virtue, Aristophanes’ tale was farcical. Was The Beast trying to teach her something by ***********ing this book? Clearly, while his romantic desire for her may have been in her imagination, his desire to help her better herself was not. If this was all she could have of him, she would accept it and still count herself happy.

As she walked into her bedroom, she felt at peace. Putting her candle down on her bedside table, she turned and let out a yelp of surprise. The Beast was in the room with her, closing the door behind them. “Hello Rose,” he said, taking a key from his pocket and turning it in the door’s lock. “I’ve come to the conclusion that there are a few things we need to discuss before we retire for the night. Do sit down.”

“Yes, my lord,” she said automatically, crossing the room and sitting on the chaise.

The Beast did not sit down himself, evidently preferring to prowl up and down in front of Rose.

“Rose, when you first came here you seemed to be a charming young girl — bright and enthusiastic, hardworking to a fault, and even quite pretty in your own way. But for some time now I’ve been quite concerned about your behaviour. First it was your gowns, which admittedly I gave to you, but you wore them as if you expected something of me. Then it was that ghastly make-up, which made me put my foot down. After that you gave up for a little while and I thought that was the end of the matter, but then one day you started with this ‘my lord’ business and began talking about me spanking you and some kind of agreement between us

“Obviously I tried again put a stop to things, but these last few days your behaviour has been intolerable. All the little teases: the flashes of flesh; the suggestive remarks; taking every opportunity to bend over in front of me or assume other lewd positions under the thinnest of pretences. Don’t think I don’t know exactly what you’re doing.”

Roses stomach lurched. She’d tried to flirt a little a few days previously, but nothing like what The Beast was accusing her of. She’d been nothing but friendly and obedient, hadn’t she? On the other hand, if her romantic encounters with The Beast had been her imagination, maybe her memory wasn’t reliable. Was she really doing all these things? No. She knew she wasn’t. “I didn’t—” she began.

“Do not contradict me!” shouted The Beast. “I’ll have no more of your games or teasing. This is serious Rose. You don’t know how serious. But you can begin by admitting that you’re a very wicked girl. Say it.”

Rose’s mind raced. After all his accusations, being called ‘wicked’ fell short of what she’d expected. He’d called her a whore before just for painting her face. Then she remembered that he’d told her he’d hold back when humiliating her. But now that the moment had come, she didn’t want him to. All at once, she saw a way to allay her doubts without resorting to her magic words. “Worse,” she whispered, looking straight at him. “As bad as you want.”

He leant forward to scrutinise her. She gave the tiniest of nods.

“Well?” he demanded, “I’m waiting for you to tell me you’re a disgusting slut. I don’t recall myself phrasing it as a request.”

Her heart soared. It was real. Then the situation that she was in truly took hold of her. The Beast’s hunger and rage were palpable.

“I’m a disgusting slut, my lord.”

“And you think that just admitting it makes it right, you fucking whore?

“No my lord, of course I—”

“Shut up. You are not a nice little girl who is allowed to address her betters. You are a vile, deceitful smear of cunt blood who plays the innocent while dangling the temptation of her body in front of me in the mistaken belief that there will be no consequences. Tonight I will teach you otherwise, and you will have no-one but yourself to blame.”

“My lord, I—”

The Beast struck across the face. Having experienced his strength before, Rose did not think he had put a large fraction of it into the blow. It could have snapped her neck. Instead it only stole her words from her mouth in a moment of stinging reprisal that echoed around the gloomy room like the crack of a whip. Standing over her as she sat on the chaise, he began to unbutton his breeches not three inches from her face.

“I will show you that there are better uses for a whore’s mouth than lies and wittering,” he said.