Innocence

Chapter Three

Women see more blood than men, I believe. Men might fight for women in battles and they see lots of blood of their enemies. But they did not bleed out of their genitals for days and gave birth to people. Even the strongest piece in the chessboard is the Queen, not the King. Made one move across the King, and you won the game. But when you made a move across the Queen, you’ll die and you’ll lose. Then wars. Men fought them but women took control behind the wars. Women are stronger than men. The first time I became a woman was when I was 14 years old. I barely knew about womanly arts such as embroideries. But I knew my body and I knew how it works.

To become a woman, you have to bleed first and your body will grow on it’s own. Your body, your sensual body will grow like a flower and it will be shaped beautifully no matter what size you are. People also knew it as growing; to transform from a little girl into a maiden or a woman. Then you will experience what we call ‘bleeding’. Some say it will be painful to bleed, but the first time I experience the bleeding was greeted by numbness. I barely felt the blood rushing out.

It was the 23rd day of March, five years ago. That day was my official day of becoming a woman. Though I was speculated as a teenager that time, but when I bleed, Mother told me that I’ve became a woman, then.
I’ve had dreamt of holding a fine white rose in my hand. It was so beautiful, even though the thorns stabbed my fingertips and palms lightly. Not sharp enough to made me bleed, but sharp enough to made me feel the pain. I was not quite sure where I was, but I was sure I was standing under the moonlight that time. I could see the savannah surrounding me. I looked down at the rose, that looked so delicate against my pale hands.

I observed the rose keenly, like an eagle observing it’s prey. It didn’t take seconds for me to realise that the petals turned red from the centre of the rose. I wondered what happened, but I seemed to drawn into it. The red had reached the tips of the petals, then a few drops of blood, dripping from them. I wondered what made me so numb, until I couldn’t even move. And because of the numbness itself, I dropped the flower into the ground as I watched it fall from my hands. It landed on a puddle of blood on my feet. The puddle got deeper and wider, invading the savannah quickly. As it got deeper, I’ve drowned onto the puddle, as if there was no ground for my feet to stand.

I was panicking.

Then in all of a sudden, I was able to move. I gazed up at the moon, that looked slightly pink because of the blood. I tried to swim up, but the more I moved, the more I drowned and the more I ran out of air. I screamed as loud as I could, though I knew that no one would ever heard of it. A scream that was too loud, until no one could heard it. I wanted to kill myself at that moment, I was terrified.

“Help! Please!”, I screamed.

The apparition of the moon just got further, and further, and further until I couldn’t see the light. All turned into darkness and I felt warmth.

Just as I woke up from my dream, I felt something odd under the thick white blanket. I awoke from my sleep and I sat up on the bed. I was concerned, really and I was worried of what happened. Immediately, without a second thought, I lifted the blanket swiftly. I found my chemise being stained by blood and it felt sticky. It was not all over my chemise, it located between my thighs. I lifted the edge of the chemise slowly, as I found blood between my thighs. The sheets were also stained by my own blood. With my fingertip, I wiped the blood on my right thigh. It felt sticky, yet warm at the same time.

It felt quite odd, actually.

I knew what happened, but I had no idea of what to do. I shouted at my maids, “Fran! Olive! Ladies, help!”. My voice was even shaking and I felt my throat being choked, somehow. When they rushed in, I was panicking in all of a sudden. Fran and Olive stood beside my bed, seeing what I saw with my own eyes. The other two maids, Marcia and Laurel were standing across them. Though I wanted the situation to be unreal, but it felt so real. Too real, in my liking.

My maids were just thrilled. “Your Highness.. you’re a woman now! Congratulations!”, Marcia said.

“Ooh, Ollie, call the Queen! She must know about this!”, Fran added.

They were giggling and then Olive went out of the room with Laurel. I was just sitting there, in utter shock and my eyes widen. Marcia lifted the cover and headed outside, leaving me in my own bedchamber. “Wait here, Your Highness. Let me get your dress and we’ll clean you. I’ll be right back shortly”, Fran told me before she headed into my closet.

I covered my gawping mouth with my hands and closed my eyes. I did not cry, but I was just confused and shocked. I waited patiently for them, and I prayed silently so it wont be painful. Gladly it wasn’t.

Not long after, Olive and Laurel walked inside, with Mother in front of them. She looked excited, I could see it from her expression. Her face was either in disbelieve or in excitement, though I wasn’t so sure about it. But one thing for sure : she was already dressed perfectly with her hair being decorated with ribbons and flowers even though it was still at dawn. “My daughter! My sweet daughter!”, she greeted, with a wide smile across her face. Even it was at dawn, when most people would still be sleeping, she was already up, delicate in her silk dress. She had the talent to do such thing when I believed no one else would have.

“Is it true that you’re bleeding?”, she asked in her unusual joyful tone.
She walked over into my bed, then she saw the blood from between my thighs and the sheets. She gasped, loudly. In my surprise, she hugged me and said, “Congratulations, you are a woman now!”.

That memory came into my mind as Fran and Marcia changed the blood stained sheets of my bed, five years later. I stood by my bed, watching them in silence.

“For over a decade we’ve served you and still you wet the bed”, Marcia teased.

I snorted and sneered, “Oh, I didn’t wet the bed, Marcia. The blood did”.

“Did you woke up to the blood on the sheets or it had been there all night but you decided to ignore it?”, Fran wondered, as she placed the new sheets with Marcia. “I woke up to the blood. If it had been there all night and I knew it, I wouldn’t be sleeping here”.

She sneered at me, “Whatever you say, Your Highness. But I bet you’ll ignore it by the moment you’ll lose your maiden form”.

“Oh, I will not lose it, Fran. I intend to keep it with me”, I said politely.

“And I bet you wont keep it because you are to wed the Prince your parents promised you”, Marcia added. Well, the news of our betrothal fled quickly. Mother must’ve been telling her handmaidens of the news then she let her spread it all over the Palace. They might going to be thrilled over the news since they knew that I was unlikely to marry a prince. They knew how stubborn and reckless I was and they assumed that marriage was unlikely for me. Once, one of them encourage me to wed someone, but I refused.

“I will not wed the Prince. I barely even know him”, I replied.

But I had to.

If it wasn’t for my people and to keep the Family Line, I will never do it. “But you have to and every men or women who ever lived, are promised to find their pair. You’ll find one, and it would be him”, Fran said patiently.
“How about Aunt Dolores? She didn’t”, I shrugged, remembering my ill fated Aunt, who was my mother’s sister.

Marcia reminded me, “She was dead before her time”.

I chuckled, “Dead before her time? She was already forty years old. Only five years younger than Mother’s current age”. Aunt Dolores was a fine, generous, and loving woman who’d spent most of her times kissing children’s forehead from orphanage to orphanage. There was no necessity for me to insult her old age, apparently. She died seven years ago when I was twelve. Unfortunately her warm heart didn’t last forever just like in her tales.

At some midnight in a cold winter, her heart stopped when Aunt Joanna clasped her cold pale hands. She was angelic and loved by the nobles and the commoners. Her sudden departure made Mother and Aunt Joanna didn’t speak of her name for a very long time. She should’ve been remembered, yet there she was, forgotten in most of the times. But people did made tales of her, about being an angel to orphans and poor people. They said Dolores Beaufort was more like a Princess than a Lady.

“She was a great woman, your aunt was. People loved and liked her. Pity she died too soon”, Fran commented on her before she took me into the bathroom.

I walked there, followed by Marcia and Fran. They both turned into a follower, somehow. It was quite irritating to be surrounded by people in the morning you’ve woke up and they followed you into your own bath to help you. I was old enough to be doing all of my cleaning activities, but I was their Mistress and they were here to serve me, the King’s daughter. But as time passed by, the irritation turned into numbness until I couldn’t even tell if they were actually watching me in my bath or not. Sometimes I told them to turn around and not to get their hands on me, but they couldn’t do as I told. They said I wouldn’t clean myself thoroughly.
That morning was just like usual. Laurel and Olive helped me with cleaning myself as usual and Fran and Marcia went into the wardrobe to pick my outfit for the day.