"She needs time to recover after what you did to her, a month at least", Liliana asserted.

"I'll give her 3 days. That should be enough for a few cuts and bruises", Trevor countered.

In the end Liliana managed to keep Trevor away from me, and to keep me resting in my room, for 2 blessed weeks, but after that Trevor lost his patience. He entered into my room early one morning over Liliana's protests, pulled me out of my bed, and marched me down to the kitchen in my nightshift. He then threatened to use the collar if I didn't go back to work, so I did.

My ugly bruises were still visible and my scrapes still had scabs, but they hadn't hurt in a while. I was simply playing along with Liliana's efforts, pretending to feel more hurt than I was in order to buy more time. We both knew that it was ultimately futile, but that brief respite did help me.

After that ordinary life resumed, including the daily torment and humiliation Trevor put me through. Every day he'd use a thin stick to whip my across the bottoms of my feet, my calves, and my breasts, and belted or paddled my bottom. All of these caused me a great deal of pain and humiliation but no lasting injury, so they didn't prevent me from working. That was, of course, in addition to the almost-daily rape and randomly giving me pain through the collar. The pain wasn't so terrible like the first time. It didn't prevent me from working, and although it appeared randomly throughout the day he'd turn it off after a few minutes. However, the lack of any warning or any time to mentally prepare myself caused me to spend my days in fear of when he will strike next.

Thankfully it was spring and the roads were once again safe for Travel. Trevor wasn't so rich that he could afford to stay at home when he could work, and so I soon had another few days of relief. It was then during those days that Liliana told me her next plan.

"I'm going to leave", she said. My heart sunk so the bottom of my stomach. She was abandoning me.

"I refuse to live with a monster. Since he won't willingly give me a divorce, and since I can't cite any legally-recognized fault on his part to force him to divorce, I'm going to simply take Henry and move back to my parents' house until he agrees to release you", she said. So she wasn't abandoning me. She was retreating in order to attack from a different direction. I still felt frightened about being completely alone in the house with Trevor, and I was sure he'd punish me severely, but we had to try something. Father's sanctions against Trevor have so far had no effect except to anger him, and I couldn't continue living like this. Every day made killing myself seem more and more attractive a solution

Renata and I helped Liliana pack all of hers and Henry's belongings and transport them to their parents' home. When Trevor came home a few days later all obvious traces that anyone but the he and I ever lived in the house had been erased.

When Trevor came home he was at first confused, then furious. He summoned me to the now mostly bare master bedroom.

"Where are they?", he demanded.

"Mistress Liliana had taken young master Henry and moved back to her parents' house", I answered truthfully. Him knowing the truth was part of Liliana's plan, after all. Trevor began pacing the room like a rabid dog locked in a cage.

"She can't keep my son away from me", he growled. He was wrong. Trevor couldn't force Liliana to share his roof, and he couldn't separate a nursing infant from his mother. That was the law. Just like he used the law to abuse me, Liliana was using the law to protect herself and Henry. I was sure he knew this already, and I didn't dare to point it out to him.

Trevor stopped pacing and turned to face me again.

"So, she means to hold my son as a hostage against me, is that it?". He stared at me, waiting for my response. I nodded. His answer was incomplete, but correct.

"So many people who loved me turned against me, all because of you", he said. "I will teach them that you aren't worth their affection, once they give up on their silly ideas of 'saving' you".

The last time he said similar words to me, it was right after beating me until I was broken. I tried to be as still, silent, and inoffensive as I could in the hope that he won't be provoked into doing something similarly as horrible.

"Until Liliana and Henry return to live with me in this house, you will experience constant pain. I will leave it up to you to convince them", he said after a long contemplation. The pain appeared in my mind, the same as the usual pain he'd been giving me at random times each day. It was as strong as a strong headache: enough to be torturous, but not enough to prevent me from working, so long as I didn't need to think about anything too complicated.

"You are to attend to your regular duties as usual. Dismissed", Trevor sent me out of the room.

To shirk my duties was to invite an even worse punishment, so I forced myself to attend to my duties, and while suffering I managed to muddle through the day. It was the night when the true difficulty started: I couldn't sleep. I laid in bed moaning in pain, but no matter how tired I was, the pain prevented me from sleeping.

Finally the morning arrived, and with it another day of work. This time exhaustion was added to the pain. At night again I couldn't sleep. I tossed and turned in bed and managed to doze off for a few seconds here and there, but that was it.

On the third day my body felt heavy, my joints ached, my muscles were so tense that it was hard for me to move, and the muscle tension caused me to develop a strong headache.

Throughout all of this Trevor continued to use my body to pleasure himself, but instead of commands and threats he would simply take me by force, and he did so with greater frequency than before, as if my suffering aroused him, or perhaps after beating me he discovered that using physical force against me was more satisfying.

The more time went by the more I broke down. I considered killing myself, or better yet killing him, but despite it all I still held on to a desire to live that was stronger than my desire to end my suffering, and killing Trevor meant being killed, if not by the collar then from by the villagers or the Royal Militia.

Finally in the evening I gave up. I couldn't take another night like this, let alone another day, and so I dragged myself out of the house to go find Liliana.