The Heart of The Beast: A romantic adult fairytale revealing how the power of love can overcome the hardest heart. Susan Kohler

began to believe there was indeed a real monster in the castle, one who did these things just to gain pleasure from watching the sufferings of others. She knew she would need a great deal of solid proof because the man she suspected was one of the few men the Beast trusted. She bided her time and watched, pondering what the future could hold for her and the Beast.

      Life with the Beast was not easy at all. She did anything he asked, true to her word, and she acted loving and obedient at all times. It was hard for her though because she had to defer to him in all matters, in spite of the fact that sometimes she ached to speak out to him about her feelings and opinions. She longed for the freedom to defy him, or to even argue with him.

      Still, she’d become more relaxed around the Beast even though she often admitted to herself that she’d not yet come to feel truly comfortable around him. She had a long way to go before she could come to love him. He was still too rough and far too unreachable. Sometimes she wondered if she would ever come to care for him in even a small way and at other times another faint hope floated through her mind. Could she bring him to care for her? Could she teach him to have any small trace of tenderness or compassion? Could she tame the beast that she’d given her life over to? Would he ever come to love her? Although she admitted to herself that it was barely possible, the only way she could see to improve her life was to try to teach him how to love. The task was more difficult for her because she herself knew nothing about the love found only between a man and a woman.

      He still kept her clothed in dresses that were almost as bad as the dress she’d been wearing when they met, little more than bulky rags. They were better fitting and of much softer wool and finer linens, but they were starkly plain with no decoration. The colours he chose for her dresses were drab greys and browns, even solid black.

      He still slapped her rump at the slightest provocation, and still bent her over his knee and spanked her fairly often. The strange thing was, the very spankings themselves reassured Beauty about the Beast. Not because she enjoyed them in any way, but because even when he spanked her, he kept his temper under tight control. He was never unduly harsh or savage with her. The reason she found this so reassuring went back to her childhood.

      Beauty had rebelled during the turmoil that erupted around her several years ago when her father died. She had fought against the pain and upheavals in her life by acting spoiled and childish. Her brother, Tom, had stepped in and taken over the raising of the barely teenage girl. He took her in hand, literally, and frequently spanked her for her disobedience. Usually he spanked her over her clothes but sometimes, rarely, Tom had even spanked her bare bottom.

      The spankings Beauty got from the Beast were no worse than she’d gotten as a rebellious young girl from her own brother, who was at heart a gentle man. They were not the beatings a brutal man inflicted on a helpless woman, meant to cause real injury, possibly cripple, and even kill.

      The Beast also seemed to relax and open his mind and heart ever so slightly to Beauty every time he spanked her. Afterwards, he’d hold her and talk quietly about his life and whatever problems he was facing. She knew he didn’t realize that he did it and she didn’t quite understand why it happened. Mayhap it was his unconscious way of making things up to her, but she enjoyed those quiet times with him, cuddling up to him and talking. The cuddling almost made the spankings worthwhile. Almost.