Breaking Vows For My Mate

Past Life

After wanting nothing but to get out of there, I had just realized that my morning duties as his personal maid was far from over.

I still had dining duties before I could be dismissed for the afternoon.

And though I walked with a head that was slightly lowered from embarrassment, I could feel the glares from the maids and guards that bypassed me.

Wandering, ‘why am I not yet at services to the duke in his chambers?’... Or ‘if I had killed him and was making way for my escape’.

“If I were to return to the maid’s dorm by this hour, questions and trashtalks will be raised” I processed the situation.

“Either way, I can’t go back after what just happened” I firmly told myself that, as a tiny part of me still wanted to go and confront him on what just happened.

Especially the smacking.

“Maid Mae” a male voice called out from behind. “ Have you gone mad? The duke awaits you”

I could tell, just from his pesky tone, that it was the guard that had summoned me from before.

I turn to face him, unaware of my glum appearance and wet cheeks, to offer an answer that could hopefully get him off my back.

In other words, to offer a lie.

“The duke sent me to deliver a message to Lady Astrid”

Lady Astrid, the youngest and only sister to the duke. A lovely woman in appearance, and likewise loved by certainly everyone.

“Ahhhh” his puzzled voice assured me that I wasn’t as convincing as I sounded in my head... Of course, delivering messages is not part of a maid’s task.

“Why don’t I deliver the message while you see that the duke is ready for the day” it had been more of an instruction than a proposal.

I became nervous with the thought of the guard finding out that I lied using the name of the duke. What more, the duke himself hearing of this.

I rose my hand up to my nape and itched it as a habit whenever I find myself in a pickle. My neck was still wet from Edgar’s saliva. I had forgotten to wipe it... Just as I had forgotten all about it.

No matter, I immediately recalled the sensation of fear I had when I was alone with Edgar...

“If you weren’t sent, why should you disobey the duke’s orders!” I pushed.

The guard stood still for a short while. I could not tell his facial expression with the helmet on his head “You leave me no choice”

He grabbed my arm and with great force shoved me to his side. “Lady Astrid took her leave this morning” he said while redirecting me to the path I just came from... “She left the castle hours ago”

“My duke!” His anger towards me had uncontrollably been aimed at pounding the doors. And all I could think of was how much of a bad mood Edgar was already in.

“Come in” Edgar said in an almost inaudible voice.

The guard’s first move, after flinging the door wide open was to propel me to the floors I was to sweep and mop “You lying w***e”

“AHH” I squealed in silence as my butt came in contact with the hard wood.

The guard removed his helmet before addressing the duke. He had that mustache of a corrupt copper, and a face that simply yells ‘a seeker of praises’

“This woman uses your name to lie her way out of her duties”

What could be worst than being trapped like this? I asked myself... I’ve never been so humiliated in all my life.

I remained seated on the dirty floors, while using both my hands as support to make it look like I am about to stand.

My strawberry blonde hair hid my face from the humiliation and from making any form of direct eye contact between any of the two men. But most especially, with Edgar.

“What should her punishment be my duke?”

There was a brief moment of silence that made my shame more apparent. I could only discern the approaching footsteps... It was Edgar’s.

He now stood by my side and probably looked at me in disappointment because of his words that followed . “Do to her as you will”

My eyes bulged out as I painfully got the message.

I see... How could I think, even for a second, that he meant what he said earlier...’ She is my fiancée, not my lover’

The guard once more hustled me up to my feet and left without another word... I had been stuck on pulling out the grass on the field with my bare hand for the whole afternoon.

I opened the door to my ‘home’ and immediately am I received with the hateful gazes of every maid on sight after a day of tedious work.

“The whorish witch is back” it had begun. The one remark from a single maid would lead to another. That even the shy ones would be brave enough to say something.

“What did you do this time?”

A stretched hallway of comments directed to none other but me. And unfortunately for me, my room is second to the last one here.

“I heard screams from the duke’s chambers in the morning”... “Don’t you have any form of dignity” she added in disgust.

I don’t have time for this. My eyes are burning from the heat of the sun and my hands hurts just by folding them.

“I heard a wolff attacked again.” A second maid gossiped loudly. “I hope it somehow finds a way to get to her” she said while glancing my way.

“Is it true she sleeps with the duke?” The voice of the maid that asks sounded sheepish, but how long before she is corrupted by the other maids.

“At this point, is that even supposed to be a question?” Someone had quickly replied with another query.

Making it seem like the sheepish maid had asked if dogs bark... Or if cat meows.

“As handsome a man he is, who requests only for her presence during both nights and days... My theory is that, they share a secret love affair”

I would always increase my pace, but somehow would the halls always seem to extend.

“And as a w***e” the maid said sarcastically “she has to bend lower than her mother does, so as to keep her secret safe with him” both ending with giggles.

I glanced solely at the maid who had made a comment regarding my mother in it.

Hoping that someday, if karma appears slack, I will repay her with her remark.

Finally I had seen the face of my door, and this time, welcomed with a new drawing on it.

I have this downcasting look on my face as the sketch is neatly designed, but it’s significance was simply another way to explain all that they have spoken about.

Except, the face of the man who displays his manhood had not been drawn. But a woman in a bending posture... And an opened mouth.

The tears welled up inside me after taking a look at the label of the woman represented with an arrow that says “MAID MAE”

Quickly did I get into my chamber, searched for any piece of wet clothing and here I am, back outside of my safe zone.

With lionesses prepared to devour me with their chilling words.

I started scrubbing away the image of the stick before finishing up with the drawing of myself on my knees. I didn’t think I will have to use my hand for anything till the next day.

Minutes turn to hours and I do nothing but let their judgements sink into my thoughts in my little space of a four cornered wall, a moderate bed, to its side a tiny douche and a wooden desk at the corner.

“I should just kill myself” I close my eyes as I recall bits of my childhood raised in the gutters that is filled with dog manure, stale wine, vomit and blood.

Mother would come home drunk every single breaking of the day... Yelling at the unliving objects that she claims to have had seen it move.

“You think you’re perfect huh!?” She would mostly say “Think you’re better than m-“ and vomit in the process of doing so.

It always got both I and my elder sister, Quincy, up and on high alert thinking we were being robbed. Also in wander of that which they have come to steal, as they are, but wasting their time.

“Mom!”

I would run down when the objects start shattering to the floor, as no thief, other than a drunken mother, would make a ruckus at such hours.

“Men use you, then later dump you” she would say with a tight grip on my shoulder.

“You’re a waste of life and you just should give up” And I, would always want to say to my mother, Cherry.

But instead, would I gaze at her in piety... Asking myself, is this the person I am to look up to?

And though my elder sister always took her side, in beliefs that she does this for our welfare...

“Do you know why mother comes home like this every night?” Quincy would attempt to hide the fear in her voice while she questioned.

I would nod a ‘No’ despite knowing what she was about to say.

“Because of you and I”

However, whenever I peered up at the grown woman who can’t even stand straight for a moment, it somehow felt like an addiction... Her addiction.

Oh yes, mother was young and her beauty was visible despite being at her lowest. Strawberry blonde hair and milky white skin.

Passed on to her daughters as a constant reminder whenever I look at the mirror, of whose womb I had emerged out of.

Mini skirts during the day and shorter ones at night. Different men around her arms everytime I come across her by mistake. And though I try to hide my face, my hair would always give me away.

And she, would shamelessly call me to her side.... “Mae, get over here this instant” with a booze in her hand.

Making everyone in the community know me, not as Mae Smirnoff, but as Mae Smirnoff, a harlot’s daughter.

And Edgar Chamillet had almost made me just as abominable as my mother.

“The nerves”