A Shade Darker ✔️

{Chapter Fourteen}

Treated By The Maid

June 9th, 2017

Mike

Honesty and confidence always did me good, it got me where I'm at today. It made me trustworthy and strong. But I didn't feel so strong as I looked at my wife who nearly just choked on her breakfast after my words.

Honesty. That's what had to be done. Maybe, it would do good.

But judging by a hard stare and eyes that wouldn't stop loving around frantically, I decided that maybe telling the truth didn't always get you to a good place.

I have just admitted to my wife that I lusted after her. Sometimes when I looked at her and admired her beauty, other times when I thought of being near her while I wasn't. Last night she made her first appearance in my dream. These were not unusual thoughts, just ones that she did not share.

She did not dream of me, the way I did her. She did not look at me with lust in her eyes, and she did not want to accompany me in bed. At least not while sober.

Her face was flushed, from anger I concluded. Not from thoughts that made her blush in my presence the way some other women did. Before I had awoken I would have paid attention to the women that lusted after me. But now I was a married man, and I was loyal. And my gaze and attention was only focused on the woman who sat glaring across the table from me.

"Too late?" She asks, a strain and sharp tone to her voice. She was angry. I have offended her by explaining my lust, and when everything had just started to feel normal again.

Like we could be something more than just a role to play for our colony.

I breathe in and out deeply, sigh once.

"Yes. You cannot control my thoughts...and I cannot control when you become part of them. In all due respect, you are-" Her chair screeches on the floor as it slides out and she stands.

Her eyes are narrowed at mine.

"Yes, I know. You've said it a million times. I'm your wife. Do you think I don't know that? How could I possibly forget by everything I was dragged into and forced to do? I should be home right now, not here, not with you or married to you. And if you plan to 'woo' me with all your...your..." A sickened look comes across her face, she flails her hands.

I suppose she was looking for words. And what is this 'woo' word she uses. In the context it must have been 'love' or something along those lines.

"With your gestures and stupid kindness. And the way you think you're making me so happy here. Well I'm not happy! I don't want this life you dragged me into! Just look at you! I mean...you're a fucking monster!" All the wariness I thought I felt had slowly faded away.

I thought if I told her the truth maybe she would have...felt the same. But now I see that it was impossible to gain my wife's love and affection. That I was only a monster to her, and would stay that way. I was incapable of being loved in her eyes.

The anger I had once seen in her eyes is replaced by sadness. Why was she sad? I did nothing but tell the truth.

The horrible truth.

Why had I already lusted after the woman who I knew would not feel the same? Was it not for her beauty, I feel that I would have still felt the same way. Why couldn't I control it? Like she told me I could in the courtyard? I had controlled the urge to suck her blood, even now the urge doesn't come. For I can only seek to protect her. So why can't I control the emotions raging through my heart? And why does it feel so broken now?

She stared at me a minute and I watched her eyes go glassy. This time when we stare at each other, there is no hint of a smile playing on our lips. There is only hurt.

The Maid, Lucile, who had brought my wife her breakfast comes through the doors.

Ashley's yelling had been loud, loud enough for the maid to hear. With a small gesture to her lower back, the maid quietly says:

"The colony's annual ball is tonight, your highness. Shall I assist you in bathing now and preparing you suitable?" My wife's gaze on me barely flickers at the mention of the ball we would be attending tonight. Together.

My wife blinks, grabs her skirts and starts down the hallway, allowing the maid to follow.

I sit alone, this time with appropriate thoughts.

Ashley

I lay in the hot bath water, the old tub so deep that I felt I could swim in it. The one with the feet like you saw in old movies, only much fancier.

Dropping my dressings and sinking into the hot water that made my muses stop growing more tense was more easier than I thought, although I was still a bit nervous at first about Lucile, my maid, seeing me so naked and vulnerable.

Because that's how I felt under everyone's watchful gaze. Vulnerable. Tiny.

She softly drags a sponge over the back of my neck and sighs, speaking for the first time.

"Something troubles you, my Queen...Something between you and the King, perhaps? Forgive me, but your voice was likely heard throughout the whole colony" She chuckles and I find myself already liking her.

She was a confident maid, older, plump with rosy cheeks and small nose. Brown hair streaked with silver almost all but hidden under a bonnet. I felt like I could trust her, she almost seemed a motherly figure. Especially when I didn't have one at the moment.

I stare at the water, sighing.

"Me and the King have many problems. But he...he admitted to having inappropriate thoughts about me" Lucile does not hide her laughter, she lets it flourish. Quite loudly, in fact.

"Having inappropriate thoughts? And that is surprising? But not offending, I'm sure, my Queen. He is your husband-"

"I know!" I smash my fists against the water, splashing Lucile out of my own selfish anger.

I sigh, looking down.

"I'm sorry...it's just that everyone keeps telling me. Including him" Lucile wipes a water droplet away from her cheek, continuing to rub the Springer across my back.

"Why did you get offended then, your highness. Have you not seen the way he looks at you? He lusts after you quite often if I'm allowed to tell. I find him in the library some nights, most with a smile. But he is not reading. He is thinking of you" I scoff.

"And you know this how? How do you know he was thinking of me?" She smiles, pats my head.

"You will find that the King is a very honest man. And when I send him on his way to clean the library, I simply ask why he is smiling so large. And every night He claims it is because you are the one who put it there" I narrow my eyes and sigh down at my reflection in the water.

"But he's...a monster" She strokes my hair gently with a brush before standing and holding out a towel for me to step into.

Once out, she wraps it around me, holding my shoulders with a tight squeeze like he had this morning.

"If you don't mind by me saying so, I think we all have a little bit of monster in us. And you have just enough to understand him with do time. I have heard the way you scream, my Queen. And I have heard the way he yells. You two are nothing less than a match made in hell" She smiles at me, her cheeks always pink.

I smile a little and hug the towel closer to me, following her to the wardrobe.

"Now, let's see. I want a special dress for you tonight, my Queen. One that will make your husband have more inappropriate thoughts"