The Secret Queen

Lydia hums through the palace corridors at night to fill the spooky emptiness that comes when there aren't any more people walking around the palace. The sweet young woman of twenty, is with her cleaning cart, with a pile of clean towels, well starched and scented tissues, in addition to all the utensils she needs to make the rooms of the castle guests.

Their steps through the corridors are light and silent, they have learned to go unnoticed through the rooms of the palace, the lords, dukes, princes and even the king, must not know of their existence. For them, everything is done magically, without any appearance of the officials.

As is routine for Lydia, the rooms are the last places she needs to tidy up before her shift ends. Some guests left earlier in the evening, but it is only now, as dawn arrives, that the pretty maid is allowed to clean the rooms.

She enters a room that has been used and does not need much preparation for cleaning, just changing the sheets and collecting used towels. Luckily, the king's guest who stayed in that room was not a person who made a lot of messes. With the agility she already had in this type of service, Lydia began to collect all the used towels from the bathroom and put them in the basket of her cart, then she washed the bathroom with impressive speed, all of which she did with genuine goodwill.

For the girl, all honest work was worth doing with appreciation. She liked her work at the palace, she liked her coworkers and the job, once you got the rhythm and all the tricks, was not difficult to do. The night shift was Lydia's favorite, the palace was in a deep calm, like a lake in the middle of the forest, for a few moments, alone doing her duties, Lydia imagined herself living in those corridors and large rooms like a princess.

In another wing of the palace, far away from Lydia, King Ethan was having fun at a private and secret masquerade party. The twenty-five-year-old king was seated in a velvet armchair surrounded by beautiful, slender women ready to fulfill the king's every wish. Electronic music was playing loudly in the private lounge, there were many masked people at his party, including the king.

Ethan was dressed in a red devil outfit, with a well-ordered mask with rubies and black horns with black diamonds. The young king was amused by the flattery of the women around him, some kissing his neck, others massaging his shoulders and some running their hands over his pants to feel his stiff member inside.

The mask party made King Ethan drink everything that was offered to him, he stayed with practically every woman that came to his private chamber in the hall, which was a beautiful mezzanine where the king could see the whole party going on downstairs, people dancing, kissing and fucking in the dark spots.

However, the king's attention to that event had already been exhausted. King Ethan felt very hot in that place, even though the hall had a lot of space and windows that went up to the ceiling open, the noise and the flattery of women after they had already been used by him, made the king sick.

Staggering out of the party, Ethan made his way with dragging steps to the other side of the castle, wanting the peace and quiet that the bedroom wing provided that early morning.

As out of it as the king was, it wasn't hard for him to make it to the quiet, dark corridor of the palace, but Ethan couldn't remember which room was his, the doors all looked the same to him.

"What the hell, I can sleep wherever I want," the king said to himself as he staggered down the corridor.

King Ethan walked a little further until he turned the corner of a corridor and noticed a light coming from one of the rooms. His footsteps dragged to the lighted room and when he got there, a surprise awaited the king and Lydia.

Lydia was startled to hear the door open behind her, as the girl was arranging the new sheets on the bed. As she looked back, her heart still pounding with fright, a tall, masked man appeared in the doorway.

"Excuse me, I'm on my way out," Lydia hurried to say, quickly lowering her eyes to the floor and putting her things in the cleaning cart.

"What? No, I just got here," Ethan replied with a curl of his tongue.

The maid noticed that the masked man was drunk and she didn't want to have to clean up vomit on the carpet right away if she stayed in that room. She leads the cart to the exit, but the boy stops her, holding the cart with his hands.

"Excuse me, sir," Lydia asks in a low, hushed voice.

The king says nothing, he just wants to have Lydia for himself at that moment. And the king always gets what he wants. The king's feet pull the end of the door until it is closed again, he pushes the cleaning cart to the other end of the room, which makes a noise when it crashes against the wall.

The sound causes Lydia to jump in fright and take a few steps back. This causes the king to let out a mischievous laugh.

"There's no need to be frightened, princess," Ethan says in a slurred voice. 'We're both going to have a lot of fun today.

"I'm sorry, sir, but I'm not a princess," Lydia replies in fear.

"Shhh," Ethan replies, placing his hand on Lydia's lips. "Tonight, you are what I want you to be, princess."

As he spoke those words, the sentence had already been announced to Lydia. The king grabbed the girl by the waist, the smell of lavender and the soft skin of the maid had made the king ecstatic, he held her tightly while giving kisses and hickeys on Lydia's neck.

The poor girl struggled to get out of the king's clutches, but the man was too strong, even if he was drunk. His attempts to get rid of her made Ethan even more excited and eager to have the young girl for himself. So, all through that night, Ethan possessed Lydia in every way he wanted.

Lydia resisted as long as she could, but at some point the young girl disconnected from her body and let that masked man simply do whatever he wanted with her. Her body gave involuntary reactions to the boy's attempts, which received that as a signal to continue.

As soon as the next day arrives, Ethan is the first to become conscious. At first the young king does not understand or recognize the place he is in, that is not his royal quarters. When he notices Lydia's presence, King Ethan freaks out.

He does not remember anything from the night before, this has never happened to the king before. He had been drunk several times, but to the point of losing his memory completely, it could only mean that during the party, someone had drugged him.

"What the hell did I do?" Ethan mutters to himself as he sees the situation Lydia finds herself in next to him.

Not knowing how to resolve the whole situation, Ethan thinks only of a temporary solution, which is often used by his lawyers and regents to shut people up for a while.

King Ethan goes to the drawers of a chest of drawers and writes a designated letter to the girl lying in bed.

"I beg forgiveness for the night. There is nothing I can offer but a free stay around the palace so you can feel like part of royalty from now on, until in your heart, it is possible to find forgiveness for what I have done. Give this to the Secretary of State in the west wing of the palace, he will know how to proceed from there for the wishes."

Finally, Ethan signs the letter and leaves it folded on the bedside table next to Lydia and leaves the room. As much as remorse consumed the king's first thoughts, he needed to take care of his kingdom first.

A few hours later, Lydia wakes up with body aches and her dignity destroyed. Her mind blocks out half the events of the night before and Lydia feels helpless and angry at the man who raped her, she looks at her fists and notices they are bruised and red. As she gets up to see what other damage she has on her body, the bedroom door is suddenly opened.

"Ah, there you are, sister," Jennifer says in an upset voice as she enters the room, "Mom is furious that you didn't come home to take care of things. She even made me come to work here early to try and find her."

It takes a few seconds for Jennifer, Lydia's sister, to notice the situation in the room. Jennifer is Lydia's older sister, who secretly has a hidden hatred for her younger sister.

"Lydia, what happened?"

-"Oh Jennifer... " Lydia collapses in tears when she notices her sister's presence.

Against her initial will, Jennifer forces herself to console her sister with sadness, to understand what happened. Upon discovering the entire account, at least the parts Lydia remembers, Jennifer laughs inside at her sister's misfortune.

"Don't be like that, little Lydia," Jennifer says with false sympathy in her voice. "Go to the bathroom, get ready while I fix it here, neither of us can afford to lose this job, it was a misfortune, but there's nothing we can do about it."

Lydia feels hurt by her older sister's harsh words, but she knows it's the truth and with that, she agrees to do as she's told. While she is in the bathroom, Jennifer finds the letter left by King Ethan and reads it quickly.

That letter is the opportunity Jennifer so desperately wanted to have in order to change her life. The king never knew the name of the girl who lay down the night before, this for Jennifer was perfect so that she could impersonate her sister Lydia, the two had a similar appearance, as much as Jennifer felt an uncommon envy of her sister's refined beauty, she knew very well that she could impersonate Lydia with ease.

Jennifer hides the letter the moment Lydia comes out of the bathroom, her younger sister's face is still red from crying and there are hickey marks on her neck.

- "Go straight home, little Lydia," Jennifer orders in her velvety voice. - "I'll finish the job for you here. Go and rest, try to put this hideous night behind you. Thank God, this night no longer exists for you, it has already passed.

Lydia wants to disagree with Jennifer, to tell her sister that last night will always exist in her mind, in her body and in her soul. Only Lydia feels too dirty, too tired and too sick to debate with her sister and with that she leaves that room.

Jennifer, as soon as she realizes her sister's departure, fixes up the room as much as she can. As much as they both work at the palace, Jennifer hated doing the chores, she didn't have Lydia's finesse and genuine dedication.

While she is trying to do the cleaning work in the room, a well-dressed and elegant man enters the room.

- 'Hello, good morning,' the man says in a deep voice. - You're the girl who's been here.... - the man doesn't finish his sentence, he just stares at Jennifer.

- "Yes, it's me, sir," Jennifer lies, her voice low and restrained, trying to imitate her sister Lydia. - 'The King asked me to meet the Secretary of State, but I wanted to clean the room first, because I didn't want you to...' Jennifer says.

- 'Come with me, miss. The King sent me to talk to you about yesterday. From today onwards, you won't have to clean anything else in this castle.

Hearing those words, Jennifer felt her heart fill with joy. Her new life awaited her.

Lydia, on the other hand, returned home by bus, dismayed by everything that had been done to her. The young girl held herself back from crying in anger and despair, she could not find the strength to go back to work in that palace again after that. She knew that her mother Beatriz, would curse her for quitting such a well-paid job that leaves her so close to high society, however Lydia never wanted to step foot in that place again, to be close to those people who think they can use people as if they were objects.

When she got home, Lydia went straight to the bathroom and stuck herself under the shower. She scrubbed the washcloth hard on her body, wanting to erase any trace of the man touching her skin, filling her inside, marking her body with his lips. Flashes of the night before jumped into her mind, but Lydia didn't want to remember the details, she wanted to keep it all locked inside.

Throughout the shower, which was almost an hour, Lydia cried with sadness, not knowing that that night would bring something much greater than she could imagine.