Chapter 4

4.1 As weeks crawled by, despite her outrage and pain, Helen found her resentment slowly transforming into admiration and gratitude. While Peter’s treatment of her was perverse and cruel, she had tried to kill him that night, didn’t she? Maybe she did deserve all of it ... He left her alive when he had all the reasons to kill her.

The stove was now fed more fuel so that her nakedness wouldn’t make her freeze, and the breakfast and supper were heartier than previously, so she didn’t starve. The spankings she received daily were painful and humiliating, but far less brutal than the initial beating, and were getting shorter. They were also comfortingly predictable, and he had not struck her in anger – although several times he gave her a dozen extra lashes before bed, on days she tried to act out.

Furthermore, he maintained that their agreement remained in force and that he would both release her come late spring and equip her for travel. Half of the clothes she was making were supposedly for her.

To her further surprise and delight, and against all her expectations, Peter didn’t force himself on her. They had sex on some nights, but she didn’t feel violated. Once he even did his erotic art on her again, making her squeal and moan in pleasure.

He never sodomized her again—a fact for which she felt strangely grateful—even though she secretly wouldn’t have minded, she still could not bring herself to ask.

Her bruises were fading, and she no longer felt the tiredness in her beaten muscles that weighed her down during the first week after that night’s debacle.

Peter still didn’t trust her, however, chaining her in the closet whenever he had to go out or receive villagers seeking his medical aid. It hurt Helen’s feelings, and she was going to do something about it.

4.2 As the first signs of spring were showing in the now-inaccessible world outside, Helen pondered: how to get on Peter’s good side? What do men like? Sex and talking about their work!

“Doctor Peter, you are so wise, reading your books the whole day while I do all the work. What do you learn from them?” She asked one evening at supper, in the sweetest sycophantic voice she could muster.

“My books?” he smiled, “I study how to heal people, mostly. Other books are voices of wise men of the past, fixed in ink. They ... keep me intellectual company in the solitude of this wilderness.”

“And why are you in this wilderness, Peter? Judging by your manners, you are a city folk, not a peasant returned from studies. A man of your towering intellect should be...”

“Because reasons!” Peter cut off her insinuations with sudden intensity, “there were ... developments in politics ... and many intellectuals had to move out ... out of the way, so to speak. I wouldn’t be surprised if your life’s ruin was the doings of the same political forces ... We will not touch this subject again!”

Helen was frustrated by the vagueness but thought better of pressing the matter. She sensed a painful cord was touched – a vulnerability to exploit at some point.

“Tell me about the wisdom of your books then! I can read too, you know, had to, to learn my prayers. We could learn from your ancient wise men together!”

That night she easily seduced him, praising his “towering intellect and another towering thing”, rewarding him for opening up to her, even if just a little. “So he is a fugitive of sorts,” she thought as he fucked her sideways, pulling her hair and choking her gently with his strong hand; “fugitive just like me. That’s why he took me in and showed me such mercy.”

Thenceforth, they talked more, and he told her about his readings, the secrets of medicine, and the mysteries of philosophy. She tried to read several “introductory” books he gave her, but was confounded by fancy words and concepts her simple education had not prepared her for. Though she could not discuss much with him on those esoteric matters, she could listen well, and he seemed pleased.

She was pleasing him in other ways too, making seductive passes at him every other evening and sometimes during the day as well. He was skilled with his cock, but not young in years, and seeing the half-concealed dismay on his face when he had to decline her advances gave her almost as much secret joy as his sexual arts when he occasionally used them.

Her morning “spanking reminders” dwindled as their friendship grew, until they became half a dozen light slaps, nearly painless to her belt-hardened butt.

4.3 Peter observed Helen washing the floor over а lowered book. The last traces of her starvation were gone, and her body gained beautiful voluptuousness, further accentuated by her nakedness. He enjoyed having this beautiful woman crawl naked on all fours before him.

She turned her head, winked, and arched her back sensuously. If his lust wasn’t so thoroughly satisfied – exhausted – by the last night’s delightful intimacy, he would grab that round ass right now. It was frustrating sometimes to have these inviting fleshy folds teasing him daily and not being able to take full advantage of them – but hey, she was just trying to be nice to him, Peter thought, it would be wrong to reprimand or punish her for it.

This new Helen, pleasing to the eye and cock as she was, worried him on a higher moral level, however. Her sexual transformation from reluctance to slutty eagerness made him worry that he either shattered her mind and personality or that it was some new elaborate month-long deception on her part before she betrays him again.