The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty: A Novel by A.N. Roquelaure (English) Paperback

Description: The Claiming of Sleeping Beauty by A.N. Roquelaure, Anne Rice The Prince awakens Sleeping Beauty and brings her to his castle, where she has a series of erotic adventures. FORMAT Paperback LANGUAGE English CONDITION Brand New Publisher Description Before E.L. James Fifty Shades of Grey and Sylvia Days Bared to You, there was Anne Rices New York Times best seller The Claiming of Sleeping BeautyIn 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 minds unconscious. In the first book of the series, Anne Rice (author of Beautys Kingdom), writing as A.N. Roquelaure, retells the Beauty story and probes the unspoken implications of this lush, suggestive tale by exploring its undeniable connection to sexual desire. Here the Prince awakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beautys 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. Readers of Fifty Shades of Grey will indulge in Rices deft storytelling and imaginative eroticism, a sure-to-be classic for years to come."Articulate, baroque, and fashionably pornographic." —Playboy"Something very special . . . at once so light and yet so haunting." —The Advocate Back Cover 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 minds unconscious. Now Anne Rices 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 awakens Beauty, not with a kiss, but with sexual initiation. His reward for ending the hundred years of enchantment is Beautys 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. Author Biography Anne Rice was born in New Orleans in 1941. She is the author of many bestselling novels, including the widely successful Vampire Chronicles. Her first novel, Interview with the Vampire, was made into a film in 1994 starring Tom Cruise and Brad Pitt. Her other books include the Mayfair Witches series, the novels The Mummy or Ramses the Damned, Violin, Angel Time, the Sleeping Beauty trilogy, and most recently, The Wolf Gift. She passed away in 2021. Review PRAISE FOR ANNE RICE: "Anne Rice has what might best be described as a Gothic imagination crossed with a campy taste for the decadent and the bizarre." -- Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Review Quote PRAISE FOR ANNE RICE: "Anne Rice has what might best be described as a Gothic imagination crossed with a campy taste for the decadent and the bizarre." - - Michiko Kakutani, The New York Times Author Comments PREFACE Ive always loved the fairy tale Sleeping Beauty, and found something erotic at its core. The Prince awakens Beauty with a kiss. And I thought, all right, what if he brought a kind of liberation, an induction into a world of bizarre yet irresistible delights? It has to be remembered that within the frame of a sadomasochistic fantasy like the Beauty trilogy, the readers are invited to identify with and enjoy the predicament of the slaves. The books arent about literal cruelty; theyre about surrender, the fun of imagining you have no choice but to enjoy sex. Beautys slavery is delicious, sensuous, abandoned, and ultimately liberating. This is all part of the framework. And it seemed to work exquisitely with the old fairy tale. And of course the fairy tale removes us from everyday life; it removes us from the intrusion of garish headlines, literal violence, and all the ugliness of crime. We go into a gilded dream here, luscious and engulfing, in which were free to imagine all sorts of things--a fairy-tale world indeed. As Anne Rice, Im known for certain kinds of novels; the Roquelaure books retain the name Roquelaure (even with my name added) to indicate that this is something "different." If Anne Rice is one kind of savory dish, well this is another entirely. And some might find it far too spicy for their taste. I dont like the idea of confusing or disappointing readers, so the pen name helps with that. Of course, there are many people who have read all my work, including the Roquelaure novels, and they see me as a multifaceted writer. But the Roquelaure material is erotica, without reservation, and it needs that pen name on the label, so to speak. The pen name says: Anne Rice is doing something very different here. I felt I needed the anonymity of the pen name to write freely, to pursue an authentic erotica without being inhibited or self-conscious. And it worked wonders to imagine myself "cloaked" by the name Roquelaure, which is a kind of French cloak--named after the Frenchman who popularized it. My father was still living then and I didnt want him to know about the books either. In fact, there were lots of friends and relatives whom I didnt want to worry about as I developed the writing. There was quite a bit of exposure involved in writing such graphic sexual fantasies. It was frightening now and then, and it was thrilling. Eventually, I told my father about the books, asking him not to read them, and I did put my name on them. I adjusted completely to people knowing Id written them. But only after Id finished with the trilogy--as I recall. A pen name enables you not only to cloak what you are doing from friends and family; it gives you a new freedom to do something you would not do as yourself. I have thought of writing some new erotica, and I must confess I imagined using a new pen name for it. I dont know whether Ill pursue it, but I do find the freedom of the pen name attractive. When the Sleeping Beauty Trilogy books were first published, they were underground books. They had the backing of a major mainstream publisher, yes, but the publication, though dignified and beautiful, was relatively quiet. But different readers embraced the books almost at once. They clearly appealed to young people, and older married people, to gays and straights. And theyve sold steadily ever since they first appeared. Women come up to me at signings with babies in strollers and giggle and laugh and say, "We love your dirty books." People of all ages, actually, present the books to be signed. Why do I think these particular books have been popular? Two reasons. First, I think it is because they involve no harsh, garish violence at all. They involve game playing, really. No one is burned or cut or hurt. Certainly no one is killed. Indeed the whole sadomasochistic predicament is presented as a glorified game played out in luxurious rooms and with very attractive people, and involving very attractive slaves. There are endless motifs offered for dominance and submission, for surrender and love. Its like a theme park of dominance and submission, a place to go to enjoy the fantasy of being overpowered by a beautiful man or woman and delightfully compelled to surrender and feel keening pleasure, without the slightest serious harm. I think its authentic to the way many who share this kind of fantasy really feel. I think what makes it work for people is the combination of the very graphic and unsparing sexual details mixed with the elegant fairy-tale world. Unfortunately a lot of hackwork pornography is written by those who dont share the fantasy, and they slip into hideous violence and ugliness, thinking the market wants all that, when the market never really did. Second, this is shamelessly erotic. It pulls no punches at being what it is. Its excessive and it is erotica. Before these books, a lot of women read what were called "womens romances" where they had to mark the few "hot pages" in the book. I said, well, look, try this. Maybe this is what you really want, and you dont have to mark the hot pages because every page is hot. Every page is about sexual fulfillment. Every page is meant to give you pleasure. There are no boring parts. Yet its very "romantic." And well, I think this worked. Lots of people enjoy imagining themselves passive, in the hands of a beautiful lover, male or female, who will force them to enjoy themselves. Its a common idea, and it cuts across gender and class. Men love these sorts of fantasies as much as women. And these books offer all kinds of gender combinations; women dominating men and women; men dominating men and women. The books offer ornate and seductive variations on the themes; and all of it is interwoven in stories with real characters, and again, the emphasis is on a lush, sensuous realm in which all this happens. There are very detailed descriptions of physical interaction and response; but the fairy-tale spell is sustained. I also went all the way with exploring the mind-set of sadomasochism as I saw it, letting the fantasy characters talk in depth about what they felt and what they enjoyed and what thrilled them as they were humiliated and overwhelmed. I suspect that for some readers, this kind of deep exploration of the mentality of the participants was entirely new. Is this why they appealed to so many, because people want this very combination of elements? Perhaps. I certainly never found the combination of elements I wanted in anyone elses erotica. So I offered what I could not find; a light touch; elegance; preciseness; a dreamlike kingdom; a dream in which people explore their need to be passive and to "pretend" that someone gorgeous and irresistible is "making" them do it. Psychiatrists have written volumes on the nature of the sadomasochistic fantasy, but when I wrote the trilogy I didnt know of any fiction that really enabled you to slide in it and "play" the way I wanted to play. So I wrote the books I couldnt find. I never thought a book as eccentric as Interview with the Vampire would have mass appeal. I only knew that I wanted to "be with the vampire" in the story, tell it from his point of view. I wanted to be inside his head and heart and reveal his voice and his pain. Now as it turned out, other people were exploring this same kind of thing--the backstory of the villain, the monster, or the comic book hero and heroine whod always been described from a distance or in brittle form. People wanted to explore all kinds of super characters and hear their intimate musings. And I began to see more and more of this--movies made in which Superman could bear his soul, and Lois Lane could really talk about what it meant to love him. The demand for such romantic fantasies grew and grew. But did I have any idea that would happen? No. I wrote what I wanted to read. Well, the same thing is true with the Beauty books. I didnt know whether that many other people had the fantasies. After all, we didnt talk much about them. Only a small elite knew about the mysterious Story of O . But I knew I had these fantasies, and I wanted to share them, and I felt an overwhelming desire to do them "right." I didnt want to compromise, water them down, or shrink from the most humiliating detail. I wanted to really delve into intense sensuous pleasure but put a gilded frame around a safe place for the reader from which he or she could go and come with ease. Of course these books have from time to time been banned. I never expected a library to stock the Beauty trilogy. I know that many libraries respond to community standards, and I just never thought about it much at all. I did notice and I couldnt help notice that the books sold well and steadily, and that at every signing I gave, people brought them to be signed. Recently, Ive signed as many copies of the Beauty books as I have of any other book Ive written. So I dont worry too much about being banned. Ive always shocked people. Years ago, I published a novel about the eighteenth-century castrati opera singers, titled Cry to Heaven . Someone brought a copy back to a bookstore in Stockton, California, and demanded his money back. "This is pornography," he said. There are always some people objecting to what I do. Im grateful the Beauty books have been embraced and sustained over the years. As a feminist, Im very much supportive of equal rights for women in all walks of life. And that includes for me the right of every woman to write out her sexual fantasies and to read books filled with sexual fantasies that she enjoys. Men have always enjoyed all kinds of pornography. How can it be wrong for women to have the same right? Were sexual beings! And fantasy is where we can do the things we cant do in ordinary life. A woman has a right to i Excerpt from Book T HE PRINCE had all his young life known 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 mothers 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 clothing 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 gown 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 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 a 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 top of her pubis. She made no sound; but if a person could moan silently, then she made such a moan with her whole attitude. Her head fell 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. Shed 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 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. "Ive awakened you, my dear," he said to her. "For a hundred years youve slept and so have all those who loved you. Listen. Listen! Youll 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. Her bosom heaved with anxious breath. And now he laughed, drawing near, and lifting her hair back from her right shoulder. She looked up at him steadily, her cheeks suffused with a raw blush, and again he kissed her. He opened her mouth with his lips, and taking her hands in his left hand he laid them down on her naked lap so that he might lift her breasts now and better examine them. "Innocent beauty," he whispered. He knew what she was seeing as she looked at him. He was only three years older than she had been. Eighteen, newly a man, but afraid of nothing and no one. He was tall, black haired; he had a lean build which made him agile. He liked to think of himself as a sword--light, straight, and very deft, and utterly dangerous. And he had left behind him many who would concur with this. He had not so much pride in himself now as immense satisfaction. He had gotten to the core of the accursed castle. There were knocks at the door, cries. He didnt bother to answer them. He laid Beauty down again. "Im your Prince," he said, "and that is how you will address me, and that is why you will obey me." He parted her legs again. He saw the blood of her innocence on the cloth and this made him laugh softly to himself as again he gently entered her. She gave a soft series of moans that were like kisses to his ear. "Answer me properly," he whispered. "My Prince," she said. "Ah," he sighed, "that is lovely." When he opened the door, the room was almost dark. He told the servants he would have his supper now, and he would receive the King immediately. Beauty he ordered to dine with him, and to remain with him, and he told her firmly that she was to wear no clothing. "Its my wish to have you naked and always ready for me," he said. He might have told her she was incomparably lovely, with only her golden hair to clothe her, and the blushes on her cheeks to cover her, and her hands trying so vainly to shield her sex and her breasts, but he didnt say this aloud. Rather he took her little wrists and held them behind her back as the table was brought in, and then he ordered her to sit opposite. The table was not so wide that he couldnt reach her easily, touch her, caress her breasts if he liked. And reaching out he lifted her chin so that he could inspect her by the light of the servants candles. The table was laid with roast pork and fowl, fruit in big glistening silver bowls, and immediately the King stood in the door, dressed in his heavy ceremonial robes, a gold crown atop his head as he bowed to the Prince and waited for the command to enter. "Your Kingdom has been neglected for a hundred years," said the Prince as he lifted his wine goblet. "Your vassals have many of them fled to other lords; good land lies fallow. But you have your wealth, your Court, your soldiers. So much lies ahead of you." "I am in your debt, Prince," the King answered. "But will you tell me your name, the name of your family?" "My mother, Queen Eleanor, lives on the other side of the forest," said the Prince. "In your time, it was my great-grandfathers kingdom; he was King Heinrick, your powerful ally." The Prince saw the Kings immediate surprise and then his look of confusion. The Prince understood it perfectly. And when a blush came to the Kings face, the Prince said: "And in those times you served your time in my great-grandfathers castle, did you not, and perhaps your queen also?" The King pressed his lips together in resignation and slowly nodded. "You are the son of a powerful monarch," he whispered. And the Prince could see that the King would not raise his eyes to see his naked daughter, Beauty. "I will take Beauty to serve," said the Prince. "She is mine now." He took out his long silver knife and, cutting the hot, succulent pork, he laid several pieces on his own plate. The servants all about him vied with one another to place other dishes near him. Beauty sat with her hands over her breasts again; her cheeks were m Details ISBN0452281423 Author Anne Rice Short Title CLAIMING OF SLEEPING BE Language English ISBN-10 0452281423 ISBN-13 9780452281424 Media Book Format Paperback DEWEY 813.54 Year 1999 Residence US Affiliation Anne Rice pen name Subtitle A Novel DOI 10.1604/9780452281424 Series Number 1 Place of Publication New York Country of Publication United States AU Release Date 1999-05-01 NZ Release Date 1999-05-01 US Release Date 1999-05-01 UK Release Date 1999-05-01 Pages 272 Publisher Penguin Putnam Inc Series A Sleeping Beauty Novel Publication Date 1999-05-01 Imprint New American Library Replaces 9780452266568 Audience General We've got this At The Nile, if you're looking for it, we've got it. With fast shipping, low prices, friendly service and well over a million items - you're bound to find what you want, at a price you'll love! TheNile_Item_ID:7487195;

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