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Chapter 164
Chapter 164
A sharp, prickling pain’shot through Janet’s body.
This hurt even more than the lashings!
Fingers were highly sensitive areas with all the nerve endings, and even more so for the nail part
Even a tiny paper cut could hurt for days, let alone shoving a bamboo splinter right under the nail!
Cold sweat drained Janet’s shirt. She couldn’t stop herself from shivering and arching her back with this extreme, harsh pain that dominated her mind.
There was noise in her head. It took her a few seconds to realize that it was the sound of her blood racing through her head.
Amidst that noise, she heard Harper’s scoffing:
“…Oh I am sorry. Was this too hard? I can be gentler…all you need to do is to beg
me.”
Janet’s chest rose and fell rapidly, her voice trembling, “…Stop…”
“That sounds forceful, rather than pleading. So maybe we ought to try again?”
Harper drew that splinter out, slowly and painfully, deliberately lengthening the time frame of this torment.
The raw texture of the bamboo made it extra torturing on the way out. It probably left some tiny fibers underneath the nail.
Janet widened her eyes.
A gasp of pain escaped her lips, “…Ah!”
A gleeful expression appeared on Harper’s lips, “So it does hurt, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t know since you haven’t said a word yourself.”
She loosened her grip.
Janet immediately took her hand back.
Blood dripped down from her fingertip and dropped to the cushion. All text © NôvelD(r)a'ma.Org.
“Oh look at that!” Harper pointed at the blood stain with an exaggerated tone, “The color red looks good on your nails but horrible on my cushion. You should wash that, Janet.”
Janet hid her injured thumb behind her back
Her hatred towards Harper had reached a new top.
She grabbed the cushion and turned to head towards the bathroom, but Harper said behind her back:
“No, I want you to wash it here. Under my watch.”
“…There is no water.”
“That can be fixed.” Harper snapped her fingers and called to Wendy, “Get her a bucket of water.”
She and Wendy exchanged a meaningful look, and the latter one went into the bathroom and soon returned with a bucket of water and soap.
Janet soaked the cushion in the water with one hand, keeping her injured hand outside.
“Use both hands!” Wendy snapped, “You won’t get the blood stain off unless your rub the surface hard with both of your hands. Do you need me to teach you this mailing stuff?”
Janet took a deep breath.
Slowly, she sank her injured under underneath the water.
A sharp pain came from her fingertip as though the seemingly harmless water had just bit on her finger.
And she immediately realized what was going on…There was salt in the water.
A dirty little trick to increase her pain.
She could feel Harper’s gaze on her back. Harper was waiting in high hope to see her cry out in pain or–even better–get on her knees and beg for mercy.
Yet she ignored the throbbing pain and the gaze on her back and kept on scrubbing the cushion.
As though she didn’t just get her thumbnail almost peeled off.
Harper didn’t get the reaction that she was hoping for, and she soon became impatient.
“…Stubborn bitch!”
She growled under her breath and shot up from the couch.
“You!” she beckoned to Wendy, “You stay here and watch her clean up this place. I am heading to the salon. Can’t waste my whole day on this tramp!”
Harper stormed away.
Wendy stayed in the room and watched Janet as she cleaned.
After Janet washed the cushion, she made Janet scrub the floor because she claimed that she saw Janet’s hand dripping blood onto the hardwood floor.
“Then can I get a band–aid for my thumb?” Janet asked.
“No. You may not.” Wendy snorted condescendingly. “Band–aids aren’t for maids and slaves.”
“Then I might keep dripping blood,” Janet said icily.
“Then you will just keep wiping them off,” Wendy replied with a nasty grin. “Oh, and you don’t want to use a vacuum. These hardwood floors are very delicate. Wipe them with your hands.”
Janet kept her knees on the hardwood floor and her upper body down to the ground all day, cleaning, wiping, and waxing the floor.
She couldn’t feel her legs anymore.
Her shoulders were sore. Her back ached like hell.
And her hands were soon rough and chapped in the soap water.
Wendy would pace over from time to time and point out some invisible stains and dust.
She would deliberately step on the part that Janet had just cleaned a moment before,
leaving some dusty footprints behind, so that Janet had to re–do the area all over again.
It took Janet a whole day to get the floor absolutely spotless.
She didn’t even get a lunch break because Wendy said that she should eat anything until her work was done.
When the night fell and the light came up in the room, Harper finally came back.
She just got her hair blown and her face radiant with joy.
“The King is coming to have dinner with me!”
Harper strode into the room crying and left a trail of footprints on the glossy floor that Janet spent her whole day on.
“Everybody hustle!” she yelled, “Light those candles! Get rid of those withering roses! Bring out the best china and puff those pillows and cushions! Hurry!”
Everybody hurried to work immediately.
Harper rushed to the mirror to check on her looks for the final time to make sure that her appearance was absolutely perfect.
When the table was set and the wine was breathing in the decanter, Lance finally arrived,
He complained as soon as he stepped into the room:
“Can’t we just have a simple dinner in the dining hall? Why make such a fuzz? What is the occasion?”
Harper was waiting for him by the door in a tight–fit evening dress and 6–inch stilettos.
Yet Lance didn’t take a single look at her carefully prepared looks for tonight and simply tossed her his heavy coat rudely.
Harper fumbled to catch his coat. She almost tripped in her skinny heels.
“I–I want to make this night special, My King.”
She said with a fawning smile and hurried behind Lance’s back, “There are just a few nights away from our wedding day and I want to enjoy some alone time with you.”
“Whatever.”
Lance slumped down onto his chair and loosened his tie impatiently.
“But don’t make this a regular thing, OK? I am very busy. I don’t have time for this every single night.”
The smile on Harper’s lips became stiff.
“…Of course…I wouldn’t dare to bother you…The thing is-” she sat down by Lance’s side and placed her hand on his forearm, “-there is something I want to check with you…about our wedding…”
Yet Lance didn’t pay attention to what she said at all.
His eyes found Janet standing in the corner.
“Janet?” he frowned, perplexed, “What are you doing here?”
“…Cleaning the room, apparently,” Janet said in a cool voice.
Harper gritted her teeth, looking infuriated to lose Lance’s attention.
She leaned her upper body towards Lance and tried to bring the subject back, “So, as I was saying, about our dinner-”
Yet Lance was still not listening, “What is that on your neck? Is that a choker? A present? From whom?”
“Something your wife gave me to keep my behaviors in check. She didn’t tell you? I guess married couples don’t share everything with each other,” Janet said with a raised eyebrow.
Harper clenched her fists under the tablecloth.
She could hear Janet’s acid tone.
“My King, what she is wearing doesn’t matter!” she tried desperately to get Lance’s attention back, “What matters here is the thing that I am about to tell you about our wedding=”
Yet she got interrupted for the third time by Janet, “If there is nothing else, I am going to have dinner downstairs. I haven’t eaten anything all day.”
That was the last straw.
Harper grabbed bread from the basket and threw it at Janet, “You want to eat? There! Eat like a fucking dog on the floor. Now can you shut up? BITCH!”
There was an awkward silence in the room. Every maid and servant held their heads down in the corner holding their breaths.
Eventually, it was Lance who broke this silence:
…You are starving her?”
“Yes my king but that is not the point-
“You need the rogue’s food in her system to keep her in this city!”
Lance roared, standing up and sweeping everything on the table to the floor.
“Are you a fucking idiot, Harper?!”