Her blond hair tickled his shoulder as she relaxed against him, her blue eyes half closed and a lazy smile on her beautiful face.
Joseph trailed his fingertips along her upper arm, making her chuckle softly as she turned to face him.
"That tickles" she complained, playfully swatting his fingers away before sitting up and reaching for her dressing gown.
Joseph glanced at the clock on the bedside table.
"Do you have to leave already?"
The queen turned to him while tightening the sash on her dressing gown.
"No- but you have to, I need to start getting ready for the ball."
"Now? It´s only four, the ball will start at eight."
"Exactly."
Clarisse got up and walked over to her bathroom door, then turned back to the man on the bed.
"I´ll go and have a shower- I will see you later then."
Noticing a dismissal when he heard one Joseph began to gather his clothes and dressed hurriedly while the queen closed the bathroom door behind herself.
He hated it when she treated him this way, like he was nothing but a servant catering to her needs- when he thought about it, that was probably how she saw him, anyway.
He wasn´t exactly looking forward to the upcoming evening, the queen was hosting the annual Independence Day Ball and he would stand somewhere next to the entrance door, trying to ensure the safety of hostess and guests while Clarisse would dance with about every man in attendance, being all smiles and flirtation while he, Joseph, wouldn´t even be allowed to address her except in case anything might happen to endanger her.
In retrospect her couldn´t really say how he had gotten himself into this impossible situation, the king had died about a year previously and the queen had begun to rely on Joseph more and more long before that, as her husband had gotten weaker, leaving more and more of his chores to his wife.
When it came to their friendship Clarisse Renaldi was a wonderful, warm and reliable person but unfortunately when it came to their sexual relationship things were different.
While Joseph was hopelessly in love with his beautiful queen and therefore frequently allowed her to treat him like some sort of toy, summoning and disposing of him as she pleased, Clarisse didn´t seem to have any feelings of a romantic sort for Joseph, in fact it seemed as though she simply found it convenient that her best friend whom she knew and trusted also happened to be an attractive man.
Sometimes Joseph wondered if she really didn´t know what she was doing to him but then again that wasn´t possible, she was a smart woman and must detect the signs he gave her, he had told her in any possible way, if not in plain words, how he felt about her and she simply refused to even acknowledge it.
Hearing the shower being turned off Joseph realized that he was still standing in Clarisse´s bedroom and quickly made his way over to the doors, the last thing he needed was for her to come out of the bathroom and ask him what he was still doing there.