My Lady's Punishment
"A-Aunt Mary suddenly grabbed me."
"And?"
"I didn't let anyone else touch me! Truly, I..."
"And?"
"...I'm sorry. Please, just spare me, my lady."
It was a reception room that went unused in ordinary days, crowded with splendid furniture neither my lady nor I had any need of. There I knelt, waiting for nothing but her punishment.
"Lily, you really ought to have been more careful."
Her voice was endlessly sweet, her hand gentle where it stroked my hair. Taken only this far, she didn't seem angry at all—and yet the sense I had honed over our long years together was sounding an alarm inside me. Keep apologizing. Keep at it with everything you have, until her anger can fade.
"I-I just received some lovely apples, so I could make it up to you with an apple pie...!"
"Come along, Lily."
"Yes..."
Not even apple pie, her favorite treat, was any use. Just how angry was she...?
I trailed after her with a sunken heart, and the place we arrived at was, of all things, the bathroom. It was the great bath chamber I scrubbed with all my devotion every single day, for a lady who loved her baths. The great tub, clear enough to mirror a face, was as good as my pride—even the main estate, with its army of maids, had never been this clean.
"Spotless again today, Lily. I can feel how much care you've put into it."
"...Thank you, my lady."
"How much effort must it take to keep a place this beautiful... I'm always grateful to you, Lily."
Oh? Was this the road to forgiveness? Hehe.
"Well. That is that, and this is this. Wouldn't you say?"
"...You are entirely right, my lady."
Not a chance, then. Truly a lady who kept duty and affection strictly apart...
"Now, Lily. Come stand right here."
The place she indicated was in front of the Automated Magic Stone Fixture. It was a wondrous thing: even if one's mana was no greater than an ordinary person's, as mine was, simply standing before it made it answer on its own and send hot water welling up. The water was drawn naturally into the magic circle set beneath, so even the cleanup was perfect—a magic stone worthy, in every sense, of being called a revolution. Its only flaw was a price no one but a wealthy noble would ever dare consider.
"L-like this?"
"Yes, Lily. Just keep your hands out like that."
Only then did I understand. My lady wanted me to wash my hands. Was it something like making clean again a thing dirtied by another's touch? I owned nothing of my own, so I didn't really understand—but it was my lady's command, and I could obey without a word of protest. Honestly, it even felt a little nice. She might have been treating me like a possession, but that only meant she treasured me to that degree. All the more so when I remembered the similar incident from my days at the main estate.
"...Hnn?"
But my lady began to do something far outside anything I had expected.
"Hold still."
"D-don't..."
"Lily."
"...Yes."
She had come to stand behind me, and was washing each of my fingers with the utmost care. Worse, in a posture like this—I was so much shorter than she was—I had ended up tucked neatly into her embrace. A soft, yielding plushness rested against my head, and a sweet scent drifted in through my nose.
"Such small, cute hands. Lovely hands that are always working so hard for me..."
She seemed to be saying something or other, but not a word of it reached me. Ordinarily she saw to everything concerning her baths herself, pleading embarrassment and a lack of time—so what on earth was this? The recent catastrophe of being licked by her tongue had already been shock enough, and this, daring to be pressed against her noble body, was more than sufficient to cook my brain straight through.
"Lily. How does it feel? Hm?"
Each of my lady's long, slender fingers was binding me fast. The hot water poured down without pause, and yet I couldn't feel it at all beside a warmth and an intensity so overwhelming. When her fingertips tickled across my palm the sensation was so strange that I could feel my heart beginning to pound.
Pressed against her like this, what was I to do if that enormous thudding reached her? The fear of it only threw me into a loop of beating harder still.
"Lily. I'm asking you a question. How does it feel... to be washed so carefully by your master?"
"I-it feels g-good..."
"Heh. What a strange little voice."
What had I just answered? Every nerve was fixed on our hands, and even when I tried to recall it, I simply couldn't.
"Lily."
Fwooo—
"Hyak...!"
"You aren't harboring any impure thoughts, are you?"
Thump. Thump.
"I'm only punishing you, you understand. The punishment of a mere maid being washed by the master she is meant to serve."
Thump-thump-thump.
"...If there are no impure thoughts—then it should be quite all right for me to look into your eyes now, shouldn't it? Turn around. Come into my arms. Show me just how much those lovely eyes are trembling."
My limit. This was my limit.
"Please forgive me... my lady... uuu..."
The moment I forced the apology out in a voice that was crawling away, my lady stopped washing my hands and pulled my waist hard against her. My maid uniform soaked through at once, clinging with a clammy dampness, but I couldn't have cared less about a thing like that.
"Aaah! Lily, my Lily... Yes. I'll forgive you. Just this once. Specially."
She only drew me in tighter, and my head sank completely into the fullness of her breasts.
...I didn't think I would forget this feeling for the rest of my life.
"But there won't be a next time."
"...Yes, my lady."
An angel's punishment, unusually mischievous. After the embrace, that day returned us to the usual shape of our relationship—but it left a considerable aftereffect on me.
"Lily? Are you hurting somewhere?"
"Ah, aah... I'm sorry, my lady. It's nothing at all."
"Heh. Is that so? Well, if Lily says she's fine."
Because whenever I watched the hands that danced so dazzlingly over her paperwork, my heart would start to pound all on its own.
...How long was this going to last?
"...Is it morning already?"
It was an early hour, before the sun had even risen. Even the maids who had to begin their day ahead of their masters would still have been asleep, and yet I had no choice but to get up. Smaller than the main house though it was, this was still a mansion in every sense of the word, and I had to manage it alone. Add in the hours spent looking after my lady, and even two bodies would not have been enough.
Unable to bear watching me grow thinner by the day, my lady had marked out zones and told me I need only clean those, and things had improved a little since... but it still wasn't enough. Whenever time was left over, I spent it scrubbing every last corner. Aside from the merchant who came on a fixed schedule, no one visited this lonely mansion—but who could say some nameless someone might not appear one day? When that moment came, I didn't want my lady shamed because the house was dirty. Even if I was the only maid, I wanted any visitor to see that we were living perfectly well.
...Watching her, my lady didn't seem to think much of it at all. Was this nothing but my own excessive greed?
Even so, I can't very well stop now.
Cleaning was enjoyable in its own way, too. If making the rooms where she stayed clean with my own hands was of any help to her, then that was my joy.
...There it is again. I feel it again.
But there was a problem greater than the weariness of my body.
A ghost... do they really exist?
Whenever I cleaned this mansion alone—pitch-black but for the moonlight—I felt someone's gaze from somewhere. At first I had taken it for my lady's mischievous prank. I didn't believe in ghosts, and there was no chance a thief would break into this house. But that only held for a day or two. This gaze, which I felt nearly every day, simply could not be hers. If it really were my lady, that would mean she was cutting through the dark to follow me at the very hour I woke, and there was no way. She was a heavy sleeper. She wouldn't even rise from bed until I brought her a glass of milk.
"I-is... is someone there...?"
I worked up the courage to call out, but of course no answer came back. I hadn't even seen a form—only felt a gaze... So was it my imagination after all? Or a sort of ghost that couldn't speak?
But nooo... uuu.
It always feels stronger when I'm bent over, I tell you...
They were the maid uniforms that were mine alone, full of memories, the ones I had brought when I left the estate with my lady. Two years on I was still wearing them, patched upon patch—but the cloth had reached its limit, and the skirts were gradually growing shorter. Because of that, when I got down on the floor to scrub, it was shameful... my underwear and my thighs were left in plain view. I never had cause to bend over in front of my lady, and I cleaned alone, so until now I hadn't much cared. An unnamed ghost, however, was putting me in a difficult position.
A pervert...? Was it a pervert...? If it was really a ghost, it ought to go down to the village and ogle naked bodies—why a maid as short and flat-chested as me... hah!
"Ah, my lady!"
The day I realized something of grave importance, I finished the morning cleaning and ran straight to my lady's room.
"...What is it, Lily. I'm still sleepy."
"A ghost! Have you been feeling a ghost's gaze too, my lady?"
"Hah? A ghost?"
There was no guarantee it was peeping only at me. As for myself—I hardly had any sense of identity as a woman, so aside from the unpleasantness, I didn't particularly mind. My lady was another story entirely. Hers was a pure body that had never even been sent to a marriage bed...! A ghost must never be allowed to look!
"Do you mean a Ghost-type Monster?"
"Not those things that actually have a body! A real ghost! The scary kind that goes oohoohoo, kyaaaah!"
My lady drank the milk I had handed her, looking as though she were turning something over very carefully. Had something occurred to her...?
"Aha, ahaha! Right, a ghost! So that's what you thought it was!"
"I knew it...!"
Just as I'd thought, Lady Renoir felt the gaze too...! Should I order some exorcism tools from the merchant...?
"You know, Lily. I think ghosts prefer black underwear. It suits that white skin of yours better."
"...Pardon?"
"This subject is finished. I'll handle the ghost myself, so you go and prepare breakfast."
"Y-yes..."
What on earth had she meant by that? A noble lady like her would never peep at someone like me... and in the first place, if she wanted to see my underwear, she had only to tell me to lift my skirt. In the end, with my questions only growing larger, the ghost incident had to be closed like this.
Uuu... It never quite burned itself out.