Elizabeth LeRoy never left a plate unclean, and tonight was no different. Save for inedible bits like a chicken bone or cherry pit, it all managed to fit inside her. Great thanks could be given to the family's cook, who had devised a menu like he could read her mind.
The 21-year-old had been staying at her family manor unaccompanied for a week now. Her father had been summoned on business to Madrid and her elder brother, James, was completing his studies at the university that would only break Elizabeth's heart to think of by name.
Her mother had passed before she was old enough to remember her. A portrait, commissioned not long before she had fallen ill, hung in the study. She could not keep herself from looking at it, no matter how much she tried to keep her gaze upon the bookshelves. It wasn't a portrait of a woman she had come from. It was a reminder of the woman she would never be, no matter how many bows were knotted perfectly in her hair.
The talk of suitors had grown rampant, and Elizabeth's dread at being wed-off had been scarring her thoughts for weeks. Her father had been reinforcing etiquette lessons for every possible occasion. He told her she was getting more ladylike. She was just good at feigning societal desires.
But she knew the influence from her surroundings was impossible to fully escape. As she was fitted into her corset and sipped from her tea with other young women, she felt comfortable. At times, she could accept that she was everything a woman should be. It's just the issue of what a woman shouldn't be that caused her strife.
"Thank you kindly for this meal," she told the cook and servants, as they moved to clear the table. "I must be retiring." Her words trailed off with a yawn that she covered so as to not offend.
The ascent to her bedroom always felt longer than the winding staircase could ever be. She trusted the home's keepers to follow the covenant of a shut door, but at a moment like this, her hearing was liable to hear a bare footstep from two rooms over.
She knew first to remove her shoes and stockings. Her corset and dress followed. She requested no assistance in undressing, finding it was far too vulnerable of a situation to be monitored during.
Her hair would've been let down by now, but it was too pressing of a matter. The only thing left she had to remove were her drawers, which she pulled off with both hands as she laid on her bed, legs bent.
Reaching under her bed, she pulled out her china chamber pot, which had been emptied of her piss from earlier that morning. It was about to be refilled, in a way that would have the chambermaid holding it as far from her as possible as she went to slop it in the morning.
The width of the pot was just barely enough to accommodate her bottom, which was already quite petite. It was as though a woman's needs were not understood and that she had been given this purely for decoration. She was not permitted to so much as say the word "chamberpot," only to request her bedroom be attended-to.
As she contracted, piss flowed forth. The sound of it helped to calm her, and she loved to see the yellow tint on the pale surface. When the last bit trickled out, she began to push her waste through. She knew it would be an ample amount, especially based on the feeling in her stomach. She looked downward to see what she was producing. It's color was close to the mahogany bureau in the eastern corner of the room, and its length was beyond that of that from her wrist to her middle finger.
The odor was not hard to bear, but she knew this was due to the biases of her nose. She had needed to wash up. Thankfully, it would be a minimal process. Leaving her now-befouled chamber pot in its place, she went to her bath, which had been filled earlier in the evening.
Just as she had settled into the warmth of the water, she heard the door open. Her anger about having her privacy violated was so great, she hadn't begun to process the embarrassment of what would be seen.
