Mini-Story: From Winner to Washerwoman (Patreon)

From Winner to Washerwoman (Time Travel TG)

“Another load, milord?”

“Yes, two more to come, Theresa, and then that should be it.”

I give a brief curtsy, and the master of the house steps away to deal with some issue or another that concerns his greater status. Thought not before, I notice, looking rather pointedly at my bodice with an expression of longing. I sigh, staring down at my own very female breasts, remembering a time in my past – and the world’s future – when I was not a Medieval washer woman, but instead a respected inventor and scientist.

My name was Karl Mattherson, not Theresa. And I lived in the year 2015, a world that seems to far away now. I was a well-paid physicist and engineer with a deep knowledge of the systems of the universe, and I had a beautiful fiancée I was looking forward to marrying. What most people didn’t know about me - even my fiancée – was that I was also working on a secret project at home, which I hoped would be the greatest invention of all time; a working time machine, able to transport anyone back into the past. It had been a labour of many years, and at thirty-six years old, I was ready to test it.

What I couldn’t have imagined was that when I set the dial back to the medieval ages, intending for it to be a short visit to the Kingdom of England, was that I would not land in my body at all, but rather that of a beautiful young wench in her early twenties. I was suddenly no longer Karl Mattherson, but Theresa Inglade, only twenty-two years old, with raven-black hair and startingly blue eyes. I had lost height, I had lost weight, I had lost years, and where my usually muscular chest was, I now had a set of not unimpressive breasts that I judged to be around a C-cup, pushed up by my bodice.

I was instantly set upon by the guards of the city, and torn away from the machine that brought me here before I could travel back. They believed they were saving an innocent virgin girl from an infernal contraption of Satan, and burned it to the ground. It took my best effort not to scream and howl in fury. Instead, I was led back to the main castle where Theresa worked as a washerwoman.

It’s been six months since that dreadful day, and I’ve given up all hope of getting back to my time and body. After all, how could I? I never told anyone about the machine, and I never made more than one, which was now destroyed. I’m resigned now to a life of cleaning laundry for the nobles, and catching their glances as they stare at the ‘beautiful maiden’ serving below. So many aspects of my life have changed; I have little rights as a woman, and the level of technology makes my expertise useless. The only thing I’ve managed is the use of crude vaccines for myself, pinpricks of the pox and other diseases that will inure me; very important if I am to live a reasonable length of time. Furthermore, I must maintain a modest, Christian lifestyle, despite being quite the agnostic. Life is much more brutal here, and dirty, but I’ve made some form of peace with it.

The only major problem is that many of the older women in the washing rooms are pestering me to find a man to marry. Many men come to me as well, and the only thing that keeps them at bay is the fact that Theresa doesn’t have living parents or relations, allowing me a greater choice of marriage as a patriarchal figure can’t marry me off. But I can’t hold them off forever, or else I’ll be sent elsewhere, or worse, to a nunnery. I must accept the fact that I’ll need to marry a man, submit to him as his servile wife, and please him in the bedroom. And because this is the medieval ages, I’ll likely become full with child a great many times. The thought of being pregnant with one child is shocking enough, but the fact that many go on to birth a full dozen or more, and without much in the way of pain relief, has me terrified!

It’s led me to hatch a plan. My lord, the minor Baron Hartley, obviously has quite the eye for me. He isn’t unattractive himself, either. I’ll just have to draw upon the best feminine wiles this former man can muster and snag his heart enough to propose to me, despite the social embarrassment. After all, if I’m to be a woman in the middle ages, destined to marry a man and become full with his babies, then why not try to climb the social ladder to the status of minor noble? It’s a woman’s lot in this new (old) world to suffer, and I’d be a fool not to use a woman’s natural skills to reduce that suffering as much as possible. Who knows, maybe I can even come to enjoy it, if I succeed. Anything is better than remaining a poor washerwoman pestered by dirty peasant men for endless days.

Yes, I think I’ll court the Baron. I’ll wear my bodice just that little bit looser around the bust tomorrow, and catch his eye again.

To Be Continued? (if people show interest!)