The Arwain Chronicles Book I

Chapter Four.

She had refrained from accepting any jobs from the men no matter how well they had promised to pay her. However restricting herself to accepting jobs from the women had proved to be an option that in some ways was just as bad. Despite the fact that she was a bit gaunt from the kind of life she led, her transformation into womanhood had made her the object of envy from all women regardless of age.

Her body had filled out perfectly as it grew all the right curves in all the right places. Her breasts started pushing hard against her small blouses which resulted in an unintended display of her ample cleavage. Despite the fact that her waist maintained its slim form, her hips flared out in a most dramatic way as all of the few calories she managed to get into herself seemed to settle in her ass.

Being naturally tall and graceful, she achieved a level of femininity that the women around her knew they would never match. She had tried to save a bit of money from what she earned to buy larger clothes to cover herself up better with. However, this proved to be an effort in futility as far as reducing the amount of attention she attracted to herself. Her face wasn't left far behind in the transformation as that too turned into something that made men bump into others and walk into walls, as their gazes remained the hopeless captives of her beauty.

All her feminine beauty however worked against her as she found herself now doing twice the amount of work she usually did for half the amount of pay she usually received. The jealousy that was ubiquitous among all the women around her pushed them to make her life as hard and as miserable as they possibly could. For her sister however, she was willing to endure this and much more, to give her the kind of life that would only ever be a fairy tale to her.

The bit of her newly gained femininity that she most loathed however, was the looks it drew from her own uncle. The very gleam in his eyes betrayed the thoughts that were running through his mind. For the next three years, she silently endured his lecherous stares that he didn't even have the decency to try and hide.

About three months after her seventeenth birthday he made his first open pass at her. She had however in no uncertain terms turned him down and made it clear she would never allow anything of the kind ever to happen between them; this didn't stop him from making more attempts in future. However with successive failures he became more forceful and violent. The beatings didn't take long after that. Every small mistake she made earned her a beating that far exceeded the transgression.

Some nights she couldn't sleep no matter how tired she was from all the painful wounds, bruises and welts that had been inflicted upon her. At these times she would sit beside the sleeping form of her sister stroking her hair and single mindedly focusing on nothing else but her. Drawing strength from the fact that all the pain she was in meant that her sister wouldn't have to endure the same.

She could still remember the day she saw her. Only a week from her eighteenth birthday. She had been coming back from cleaning the brothels again, when she saw her. She had never in any way been vain about her beauty, but this was the only woman she'd ever seen whose beauty she was envious of.

It wasn't her beauty alone that had her enamoured, it was also the pure power and confidence with which the woman carried herself. Unlike the women around her who walked heads bowed shoulders drooped lest they attract the wrath of men around. The woman walked shoulders straight and head held high with absolutely no regard or fear of what men around her would think.

Despite the fact that she had never concerned herself with the business of others. When she saw the man walking beside the woman, she hadn't been able to stop herself from doing what she set out to do afterwards. It was Sir Rothwade, a man who was well known for forcing himself on all the women that were unlucky enough to come into contact with him. But had too much money for anyone to do anything to him. The thought of someone as strong and as beautiful as her being defiled by anyone was simply unacceptable to her.