The winter was hard, both because of the weather and because it kept Anna inside, where her father could easily find her. She simply shut her mind off after a while, sitting and sewing or knitting, waiting for the inevitable imposition. Her father, furious that she didn’t seem to be any more reactive than a corpse, at first tried humiliating her, forcing her to roll in the snow naked until she shivered with cold, taking her to the barn and making her roll around in the dung, whatever unpleasant thing he could think of. He even tried surprising Anna at odd times, but soon enough, when none of this gave any response, he began spending more and more time out of the house. Anna didn’t know where, but she had a few guesses.

Anna and her mother stayed in, huddled by the hearth, all through the cruel winter. Her mother taught her new stitches and cooking, and both remained silent about life, trying to just forget the past and future and live in the now. Anna’s mother knew very well what her husband was doing to his daughter; one of the things Sergei Ivanovich had tried to get Anna to react was forcing her to pleasure him while her mother watched, unable to say or do anything. But Anna’s mother simply waited until the rape was concluded and the tyrant had gone, then helped Anna to the kitchen where she washed her with warm water and put her to bed.

When spring came, Anna was overjoyed because it meant she might once more go out and meet Noor in the fields. They had seen each other only twice that entire winter, always at a distance, Noor riding close to the fence of the house and rearing back, Anna running out, even barefoot, to wave wildly. It was Anna’s enthusiasm for spring, that and her preoccupation with her father, that kept her from noticing her mother’s deteriorated condition until it became too bad to conceal.

On that day, Anna’s mother did not rise from her bed, and as Sergei Ivanovich was away, Anna, crept into her parents’ room, where she heard soft coughing.

“Mother?” she called nervously.

“Come here, Annuska, my beautiful one,” said her mother from the bed weakly, not even rolling over. Anna approached cautiously. “Anna my darling, I don’t know what’s come over me.” Anna could see in her mother’s eyes that she was lying. “I feel tired, too tired to do the chores today. Please Anna, be a good girl and help me, before…” She broke off with a spasm of coughing.

Anna had seen only one other dying person; when she was very young, her grandmother had lived with the family until she died. Anna’s mother had the same look on her face, and Anna was frightened. Anna’s mother recovered. “Shush, shush little one, don’t worry about me,” she said softly, smiling even though her eyes were filled with tears. “You must not worry. I will never leave you alone with him.”

Sadly, as the days went by, it became apparent that Anna’s mother, despite her promise, was going to leave Anna. Sergei Ivanovich had taken one look at his wife and left for town again. “If she recovers, come to town and tell me,” he said to Anna as he was getting his usual goodbye fuck, although in the cold barn rather than his bed. “I don’t want to catch consumption from a dying whore.” Anna, bent at the waist, simply nodded once and tried her hardest to tighten her cunt on his shaft so he would fill her and be gone.

A week later, Anna’s mother was dead. Anna was alone in her big, cold house, waiting anxiously for her father’s return.

Sergei Ivanovich was not the first figure to walk through Anna’s door. It was Noor, clad from head to foot in furs against the still-cold air. In her hand she held a long-bladed knife. “Anna!” she called out. “Anna! I’m here for you Anna.”

Anna had never been so relieved. “Noor, my sweet one, what are you doing?”

“Is he here?”

“No, no, thanks be to all the saints.”

Noor, if anything, looked disappointed. She sheathed her knife. “I was going to kill him this time,” she said slowly. “Weak as I am, I was finally going to get up the courage to try. To set you and your mother free from him.” When Anna began sobbing and fell to the floor, it took Noor a long time to calm her down enough so she could explain.

“My mama is dead,” she said finally, softly. “Now I have no one but you, and you’ll have to leave too…”

“My love, I will not leave you ever again,” said Noor, kissing away Anna’s tears. The kisses mounted in enthusiasm; after all, it had been almost four months.

Then, just as it seemed than Anna was about to lose herself in Noor’s lips, she broke away. “You can’t stay here, my father will be back, he’s more than a match for you…”

“I am not going to stay,” said Noor, and Anna sighed with a great sadness. “Come, let’s give your mother the burial she deserves.”

Out under the cold sky the two girls carved a pit, barely deep enough, in the frozen earth, then carefully carried the wasted form of Anna’s mother out and laid it in. “Goodbye mama,” said Anna softly, kissing her pale cheek. “You are free.”

It seemed disrespectful to make love on the evening of a funeral, and neither Anna nor Noor wanted to disturb the strange island of peace that had settled on the empty house. Instead, they built a fire, bright and hot, and curled up in front of it in each other’s arms. Soon Anna was crying again, and then sleep overtook both girls.

In the morning Noor was all business. “There’s nothing for you here now,” she said to Anna, stroking her hair with an idle hand. “Run away with me now, out onto the plain. You never have to suffer your father’s humiliation again, nor your brother’s. No one will ever force themselves on you again, Anna, my precious.”

“I don’t know,” said Anna nervously. “I wonder what my father would do. He might… he might track me down and then…” She began to whimper uncontrollably.

“Shush, shush now,” said Noor, kissing Anna softly on the lips and then on both eyes. “No man can find my people if we do not wish to be found.” Noor kissed Anna’s lips again, longer this time, looking deep into her eyes.

“What will your family say, your people, how will they…”

“Let me worry about that, sweet one, lover mine.” Noor’s hands were on Anna’s hips, stroking and holding her possessively. “If need be, we can go off by ourselves. We are both survivors, you and I, like the wild horses of the steppe. Well, except that even the most beautiful filly could not compete with your loveliness.” The horsemaid’s words were soft and heavy on Anna’s lips while her supple legs were tangling with Anna’s. Anna’s body needed release, even if her mind was still occupied with worries.

“Noor, you make me feel safe,” Anna said dreamily, kissing the horsemaid’s warm lips slowly, then with more urgency as Noor began working her hands around Anna’s back, undoing the buttons of her dress. Anna for her part was frantically pulling Noor’s body closer, working down into the horsemaid’s leather riding breeches, cupping the soft flesh beneath. “Make me forget everything but the scent of you.”

Noor’s breath was warm on Anna’s neck as she began purposefully kissing, nibbling, licking her way down across the pale exposed skin of Anna’s shoulders, even as she was working Anna’s dress down over her white cotton shift. Soon Anna had to pull away, both because her skin was on fire and because her arms were pinned to her sides by the descending neckline of the dress. She quickly pulled it down and off, pleased to note that Noor was taking the time to pull her loose linen shirt off, revealing the horsemaid’s tanned breasts, the dark nipples jutting out from them in a way which made them seem even smaller in comparison than they already were. But they drove Anna wild, and before Noor could say a word, Anna had her face on them, her tongue flicking out to run teasingly around first one nipple, then the other. Noor’s body shivered with arousal.

“Anna, I love you so,” said the horsemaid breathlessly, running her hands through Anna’s thick long hair. But Anna was just getting started. She gently pushed Noor back onto the blanket on the floor and urgently pulled down the horsemaid’s breeches, exposing the paler skin of her abdomen and hips, and then between her thighs the tuft of dark velvety hair, like the mane of a horse, which covered her most intimate of treasures. Once the breeches were discarded, it didn’t take Anna long at all to spread Noor’s creamy thighs, muscular but femininely yielding, and begin kissing her way down from the tan bellybutton to the pubic bush. She had never smelled anything so beautiful, musky, smelling of horse and maiden, plus sweet nectar. With her hands she exposed the shuddering maid’s lips, dark under all that dark hair, and noticed with delight that they were already quite moist.

“Mmmmmm, you’re so urgent, my sweet, my only,” gasped Noor as Anna began stroking the lips with her fingers, feeling the sticky heat cover the tips. “I won’t last if you keep that up.”

Anna looked up briefly, smiled, then returned to the horsemaid’s exposed cuntal opening. She licked her fingers slowly, tasting the female juices of her lover, then moistening her fingers and returning to stroke again. Each time she passed over the entrance, she delved a finger deeper, reveling in each gasp she elicited. Noor’s pert brown chest was heaving with panting arousal as Anna continued her exploration, until she had her middle finger inside the horsemaid’s tight passage. Then she stopped and looked up at Noor’s face again. “I want to see your face,” she said softly, and then started working her finger deeper, getting a feel for the rhythm of Noor’s breathing and matching it, withdrawing and pressing in deeper, each time curling the tip just slightly up to press against the spot she knew was Noor’s most sensitive.

As Noor had said, she didn’t last. Only a few minutes of these ministrations and Anna felt the maid tense on her finger, and she knew what would happen next. She began to push up, a solid pressure on Noor’s upper wall, as the horsemaid tensed, her back arched, and then she fell into waves of climax, moaning, eyes closed, lower lip clenched between her teeth. Anna felt rather than saw the horsemaid’s cunt grow wet and ooze onto Anna’s finger; Anna kept up the pressure with a slight rotation, delighting in watching Noor fall apart on the floor before her. The horsemaid’s pelvis, lithe and sinuous, ground into the air and then back onto the floor; her hands grasped at nothing, her legs pulled back and up toward her chest, spreading her lips wider. When Anna felt the tremors in the walls of Noor’s cunt subside, she gently pulled out her finger and crawled up to embrace the still-panting horsemaid, pulling her fevered form close and feeling Noor’s hands and legs wrap around her.

They stayed locked in the embrace for what seemed like hours, Noor’s breathing slowing, the heat from her tan flesh radiating out like the hottest fire. Anna felt the horsemaid’s hands begin to toy with her pert buttocks, teasing down the crack between and up to the small of Anna’s back. Each light touch made Anna quiver, and she was only too ready to let Noor have whatever access she wanted. The horsemaid was quiet even as she broke from the clutch of Anna’s arms and began slowly running soft lips down the collarbone, between each heaving breast, pausing momentarily to tease the navel, then down lower still. Anna’s cunt was only lightly covered with down, which did nothing to stop Noor’s lips from covering her opening and breathing cool breezes onto the flame that was Anna’s pubis. Each breath made Anna shiver, but seeing this, Noor slowly used her warm hands to cup Anna’s thighs, spreading them to see her better.

“I could stay here forever, just breathing in your scent,” sighed Noor almost to herself.

“I can’t,” Anna giggled, reaching down and running her hands playfully through Noor’s short dark curls.

“Haven’t you had enough from… well, you know?” said Noor with a smile.

Anna was silent for a moment, her face becoming sad. “I’ve never had anything from them,” she said softly. “I’m just an animal to them.”

Noor was looking into her eyes in a flash, her hands moving to cradle Anna’s body. “I’m sorry, beloved, I didn’t think,” she cooed softly into Anna’s ear. “You know I was only joking.”

Anna forced herself to smile. “Yes, yes, I know,” she said. “It’s nothing.”

“You may lie to everyone else, but not to me,” said Noor, looking deep into Anna’s eyes and seeing the pain there. “They don’t deserve someone as beautiful as you. I don’t deserve you. All I want is for you to be happy.”

Anna nodded slowly.

“If you want, I can leave, or give you some time alone…”

“No!” Anna’s voice rang out louder than she expected. “You must never leave me again, please! I don’t know what I’ll do without you.” She smiled again, and this time, even though there was worry in her eyes, the smile was genuine. “Without you, I would have no one to finish me,” she whispered in a low, sultry tone.

Noor’s fingers were already working their way back up between Anna’s young legs. “It would be rude of me to leave you here, wouldn’t it,” said the horsemaid in the same low tone. “Besides, I can’t let you think that you can best me at anything, least of all lovemaking.”

With that, she spread Anna’s thighs wide again and moved back between them, and this time she didn’t just smell Anna, she tasted, her tongue flicking out over the girl’s pink lips, delicate as a flower. Anna felt the horsemaid spread the lips wide with gentle fingers and then begin running her tongue up into Anna’s passage, still tight even after all the violations of the past. Anna lay back and gave in to the sensations, closing her eyes and seeing in her mind Noor’s soft lips closed over her opening, driving her tongue deeper into Anna’s cunt. The horsemaid’s tongue was lithe as she, working into crevices that Anna hadn’t even known existed.

Soon Anna was moaning softly, and Noor slid a finger into the girl’s well-lubricated hole and began slowly stroking her deepest spaces, moving her mouth to concentrate on Anna’s sensitive bud of a clitoris. Anna grew louder as she approached climax, and when Noor sucked Anna’s clit into her mouth as she inserted another finger, Anna lost control. A veil of passion descended, and there was nothing in the world except Noor; Anna felt her being being expelled into the horsemaid’s mouth as she came.

When she awoke, Noor was gone, and Anna’s father was standing over her with a harsh look on his face that could only mean one thing. Anna silently prayed that Noor had really taken her spirit, leaving only an empty shell to be abused by this man she could not seem to escape.

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