Chapter 3

3.1 Peter brooded over his books in the dimming light of the dying day. In the week since he brought Helen to his bed for the first time, distasteful transformations had taken place in her demeanour. Instead of turning from an amicable tenant-servant into a servant-lover, the woman turned into an unpleasant reminder of his dead wife. Helen wearing his wife’s clothes completed the picture (he had discarded the rags she came with).

He felt like she was trying to take control, to use his manly desires as a yoke to subdue him, to make him accept her new overbearing, domineering persona, as she bombarded him with baseless nagging and nasty insinuations. His stern remarks were ignored. He had to take immediate action, or her assault on his self-esteem might well succeed.

3.2 Helen had been feeling so alive these last few days. Her physical recovery, coupled with the fantastic night Peter gave her a week ago (and several times since), gave her the energy to step above her current condition. After all, if he took her as his de-facto wife, she deserved the respect husbands owe to their wives as mistresses of the house.

He, an aging widower, might grumble now, but with some pushing and pulling, she was sure, he would accept the new reality. That evening, however, he reacted poorly to her efforts to get on top of him.

“I was treating you well, Helen, but you must have mistaken my kindness for softness and started treating me like dirt. This will not continue. A good spanking will get through to you where reason did not.”

“No, you don’t. Honey, does your head ache again?” Helen answered, hoping he would back down.

“This. This again. Don’t you dare to demean me, woman! We made an agreement, and unless you want to break it and get out into the cold right now, you will submit as you swore you would.”

Helen wanted to argue further, but the anger in his voice and grim determination etched on his bearded face sealed her lips, though her hands balled into fists at her sides.
“Now, undress and lie down for your correction,” he ordered, pushing her towards the bench.

Inwardly furious, Helen bit her lip but obeyed to avoid angering him further, even though lying naked on a bench like a little girl was profoundly humiliating.
“Grab the bench and scream as much as you want, but don’t dare to get up from it or cover yourself, or I’ll start over.”

A heartbeat after she begrudgingly complied, his belt landed on her ass with a loud SMACK. The burning sensation was more shocking than painful, making her body jump on the bench. “That’s one, you stupid cunt” he spat out with venom, laying further blows with increasingly angry remarks and greater strength.

As the pain in her beaten rump built up, Helen howled and struggled not to flee from the bench or cover herself. Then, to her surprise, the doctor’s voice was level and calm again, his blows measured, heavy but no longer furious. Her butt was on fire by the 23rd lash of 50, and she started pleading:

“I’m sorry Peter – Awww! – I didn’t want to anger you – Ayee! – Please, please stop, I learned –Ahhau!”

Her pleas had the reverse effect however, as his counting voice grew angrier again, and his blows hit her battered ass harder and harder, so she stopped her entreaties, crying and whining wordlessly as he punished her. To her relief, on the 42nd strike, Peter calmed down again, and finished the beating in a measured manner.

“It’s not something I like doing,” –he said, breathing heavily, “and I hope I’ll have no need to repeat it,” he continued, touching her hot blazing butt-cheeks. The touch was painful, making her twitch. “But I will suffer no disrespect from you, and the beatings will continue until your attitude improves. Is that clear?”

3.3 Peter was quite happy with how well the spanking had worked out. The woman he rescued had again become polite, if a bit silent and gloomy, but that was to be expected, he thought. His own feelings concerned him, however. During the spanking, he struggled with his anger, with an urge to beat her as hard as he could, to never stop lashing her, and to fuck her so hard that his dick pierced her all the way through and came out of her insolent mouth.

He read about such things and did not like the inner beast rearing its ugly head. He was a reasonable man, a good man, wasn’t he? To avoid any associative connections forming, he resolved not to have sex with Helen for a whole week.

3.4 Helen simmered inside, her buttocks aching from the belting Peter gave her. That bastard! She had to get out of here! She must be smart about it, however, she thought, feigning submission while taking note of which supplies were stored where, and which cupboards contained winter clothes, guns, backpacks, and other gear she would need to appropriate.

Three days later, around midnight, she rose from her sleeping bench and, after a silent prayer, stealthily started to execute her escape plan. She was familiar with the cabin layout by now and had no problem navigating it. Even in the meager light the moon poured through the small windows, she easily found all the items she had pre-selected.

Things were going well until Helen, already wearing Peter’s winter boots and coat, went for the gun cabinet. She would need his rifle to hunt game on the trail and to fend off any hostile encounters. The cabinet, however, turned out to be locked.

Helen knew Peter kept the keys in a cupboard near his bed. Hesitating for a moment, her heart beating loudly in her chest, she stole into his room and silently retrieved the key, fearful not to awaken him and nervously listening to any irregularities in his faint snoring.

With the key in hand, she moved silently to the gun cabinet and unlocked it. Taking the rifle in one hand, she grabbed for the ammo box on the upper shelf. Suddenly, its thin cardboard came apart, and she was showered with scattering cartridges.

Helen almost shouted in shock but managed to hold her mouth shut. However, due to her surprise, her grip on the heavy rifle weakened, and it slipped from her grasp, its stock banging loudly on the floor. Hearing the doctor rising from his bed, Helen half prayed, half cursed under her breath, going to her knees, grabbing the rifle, and gathering all the cartridges she could quickly find into her coat pockets.

“What are you doing, girl?”

“I’m leaving, old brute, don’t try to stop me, I’ve got a gun.”

“So you are stealing my winter coat AND my gun?” he asked from behind the door frame. “You swore a sacred oath, remember? Aren’t you afraid God will punish you for breaking it?” he was making noises, doing something she could not see.

“That’s between me and God, old man. Now I will go out of here, and you be smart and don’t stick your head out, or I’ll blow it right off.”

Half crouching, Helen hastily put the backpack full of stolen supplies on her shoulders, keeping one hand always on the rifle. As she rose, a shape darted from behind the corner Peter was hiding behind.

She fired, blasting with both barrels. The shape moved one more meter and fell flat – too flat to be a human body. “Damnation!” she thought, frantically reloading the gun. As she was removing the fired casings, she heard his steps thundering towards her. “Just a few seconds,” she prayed, backing away into the corner.

As she put new cartridges in with trembling hands, her sight was suddenly invaded by visions of her house burning and her desperate flight. Disoriented, she struggled to close the rifle, but failed to lock it properly. Then he was upon her, an angry shadow in the moonlit night. He grabbed the gun barrel, pressing it to her body so she could not aim at him. His fist connected with her face, and as she fell, the gun was torn from her suddenly slack hands.

“You tried to kill me!” she heard, disbelief and outrage in his voice. Then his fist connected with her forehead. She could no longer resist or understand his words; sparks and flashbacks battled across her vision, yet consciousness did not entirely desert her. In a daze, she vaguely registered being disrobed of the stolen coat and sweaters, a lantern being lit, her hands and legs bound with rope, and then being dragged to the main room.

3.4 As the din in Helen’s head died down, she realized she was lying on the table, hogtied and undressed down to her under-garments. The doctor came from behind her, a noose in his hand. The other end of the rope trailed up into the gloom of the rafters.

“Please, Mr. Peter, don’t do it” Helen pleaded, hoping to invoke his gentler side.

“Well, it seems it was a mistake to save your traitorous tits after all. A mistake I will now correct.”