A Legendary Love

Chapter Three

Jen attempted to open her eyes quite reluctantly, not quite ready to face the day. She couldn't believe she'd let herself get so drunk.

She blamed the free fizz.

As Jen started to stir, she began to notice that she was quite uncomfortable. Her memory foam mattress seemed to have lost all aspects of both comfortable foam, and also memorability. As she rolled over to face her alarm clock, she found herself falling out of her bed. Jen's knees hit the cold stone floor, and her eyes flew open.

Instead of facing her metal bedframe adorned with fairy lights, she instead was looking at a plain wooden bedframe with a stone wall behind that. On the simple wooden bedside table stood a single candle in a candlestick. As she looked closer around the room, she realised there were no plugs, and neither her laptop nor mobile phone were anywhere to be found. Of one thing Jen was sure: she was not in her own room.

A million different reasons for her strange surroundings flashed through her head, each of them getting more and more unlikely. She hadn't had a one-night stand – of that she was sure; she distinctly remembered leaving the fundraiser arm in arm with Georgie. Had she started sleep-walking? But you would have thought that if that were the case, she would have started sleep-walking long before she turned 25! Had she been kidnapped and was being held for ransom? If that was the case, her kidnappers had picked the wrong girl, as she was pretty confident her mother wouldn't fork out the cash to pay off her kidnappers.

As she stood up, her nightdress hung loosely to her mid-shins. But wait, Jen was sure that she had gone to bed in simply a t-shirt? Who even owned a nightdress these days?

Before she had the chance to think of any theories for her nightwear attire, there was a knock at the door.

"Ma'am, are you decent? We must be heading off soon," came a harsh female voice. Without waiting for an answer, a strict looking woman who looked to be in her mid-fifties. bustled into the room, her arms full of a light pinkish material. Under the headscarf covering her head and tied underneath her chin, Jen noticed a slight hint of mousy brown hair, threatening to turn grey. The woman was small and round in stature, with steely blue eyes that looked stern.

"Let us get you washed and pretty shall we, Ma'am? We are not too far away from your new home, and I am sure you wish to wash away the dust of the road from the journey yesterday."

Jen spluttered a response which was not heeded by this bossy woman who instantly pushed Jen behind a screen as two men struggled into the room, carrying a large basin half filled with water. Jen shivered involuntarily. Even from behind the screen, the water did not look warm, and she had a sinking suspicion that this water was meant for her to bathe in.

Still overwhelmed by the fast pace in which events were taking place in her strange surroundings, she didn't have time to think before the bossy woman was pulling Jen's nightdress off over her head and forcing her towards the tub.

Struck dumb, Jen sat in the lukewarm water as her new companion roughly washed her body for her with a smelly and scratchy bar of what Jen suspected to be lavender soap. Jen reminded confused and silent as the woman pulled her from the tub and harshly dried her body with a small rough towel, and then began to dress her, throwing an off-white underdress over her body, followed by a simple dress made of the light pink material over Jen's head. She swiftly placed a thick brown belt around Jen's waist and pulled it as tight as possible in order to accentuate Jen's waist. As Jen was being dressed, she noticed that there seemed to be a few differences in her body proportions. Her breasts seemed to have reduced, and her hips weren't as broad as they had been; it seemed like she was 16 again! She smoothed down the front of her dress, feeling the hard, bumpy material under her fingers.