I wanted to stand tall and proud but my peasant knees, born to bend, buckled as I wept. This hardworking, red-haired peasant girl who didn’t even consider herself pretty, had won the king’s favor from thousands of other faces in the packed audience hall that evening and earned the highest position in the realm. A Cinderella queen with an insider’s perspective was exactly what the people needed after centuries of rampant poverty and abuse of power. But, selfishly, I was just happy to never go cold or hungry again.

“Shall we visit your new chambers,” said a royal blur behind my tears. The king, my king, offered me a hand, which I took with a beaming smile. His advanced age and crippling taxes didn’t matter in that moment; I was in love.

The king was eager, his hands feisty. I left a trail of garments up the stairwell to our bedroom which I entered in the nude, blushing at the last guards in the row.

My heart sank at the sight of three other naked women in my bed. Polygamy was a harsh reality to stomach. While the proclaimed prettiest face in the realm shouldn’t trouble herself with envy, these curvaceous floozies certainly had me outclassed in every other area. I silently prayed for my king to announce that their services would no longer needed now that the mother of his future children was here.

I was instead asked to kneel on the stone tiles next to an intricate and surely expensive carpet by the bed.

“Tilt your head up, mouth open. Hands behind your back. Yes just like that. Don’t move unless a servant comes to empty you.” With his feet on the carpet that my knees yearned for, the king disrobed and climbed into bed to clad himself in arms, legs, and breasts.

“My king, I do not understand.” I embarrassed myself with garbled words by talking with my mouth still wide open.

“Oh, I am certain you will do great,” the king said, dismissively, in a brief moment when his lips parted from the nipple pacifier.

“Is this… situation only until we wed?”

The king laughed and his bed partners took the cue. I blush easily, so this cackling nightmare lit my face on fire.

“Thank you for that. But I have a jester for jests, I don’t need them from my royal chamber pot.”

“Chamber pot?”

“Yes, the highest position in the realm for someone lacking noble blood. Was that not clear? Fret not, for the bar is low; your predecessor was inanimate copperware after all. It did not suck me dry or lick me clean. Did not smile at the sight of my dirty cock or say thank you after swallowing a strong morning stream.”

The prettiest face in the realm was needed to urinate on. This affected my enthusiasm. But, when things look grim, my mother has always said to count three blessings, an easy feat in the worst circumstances. The fireplace warms my back.