Friday, January 3, 2014

The Housekeeper - Chapter 31 Part 1 of 3



The Housekeeper
By Karen Singer

Chapter 31 Part 1 of 3


“Damn all this rain!”
Roger stared out his bedroom window at the early morning pouring rain.  He couldn’t remember the last time he had seen the sun.  Since last December, it had rained at one time or another nearly every single day.  He hadn’t seen a newscast about it for a long time now, but from everything he had heard from the other teachers talking, this was quickly shaping up to be the rainiest year in history for the area. 
And the gloomy weather did nothing at all to help brighten the gloomy disposition of his soul!
He thought back to church yesterday.  “Trust in your friends.”  That had been the message from Bethany that now lingered in Roger’s mind.  Trust in your friends… only then will you find success and happiness.  Roger wasn’t sure if he was all that worried about success, but he certainly wasn’t happy.  And yet, because of the situation, his friends were the very people he needed to drive away.  Because of that, he literally had no one that he could trust in or even turn to.  And he certainly wasn’t about to start trusting Janice… or Carol either!  No, they were the sum total cause of all his problems! 
He had spent the entire day yesterday as Candy.  Since it was Sunday… and it had started raining before they got home, Janice had insisted that he not do any work and remain in his dress the entire day.  He had spent much of the day sitting at the kitchen table creating lesson plans as Candy… he had created a couple of quizzes for his classes as Candy… and he had watched more than a few makeup videos as Candy.  And at dinnertime, he had been allowed to sit at the table and eat like a human… as Candy.
Candy!  Candy!  Candy!  It seemed like with each passing day now, Candy was growing into more and more of a reality… and Roger Brinkley was starting to disappear more and more.  Was he losing himself?  Undoubtedly!  But what the hell could he do about it?
He lightly pounded his fist against the wall next to the window.  Damn all the rain!  Turning, he headed out of his room.  It was time to go to school.

“Hiiii Roger,” Jennifer White sang as she set her lunch tray down across from him.
Roger gulped as he watched Jennifer sitting down… and he felt his cock responding to her presence… in a most unwelcome way.  Cold!  And damn… did she have to wear a top that revealed so much of her breasts?  This was school!  It was nearly indecent!  But he said nothing and took another bite of his hamburger instead.
“You could at least say hello!” Jennifer complained.  “You don’t have to look so upset every time I come near you anymore.”
How could Roger explain about the icy condition of his cock just then?  He couldn’t!  And he didn’t want Jennifer around him anymore… not only because of the cold in his cock, but mostly because he needed to protect her from Janice!  “Hello,” he managed to grunt out.
“Well hello to you too!” Jennifer replied sarcastically.  “Look Roger, it wasn’t you!  You weren’t the reason I broke up with you!  Okay?  Get over it.  The problem was something in me… not you.  I still like you though… a lot!  And I see no reason at all that we can’t stay friends!”
Roger looked up at her.  No reason?  He wanted to throw in the fact that he was fairly sure that she was sleeping with Stan.  And Stan was his best friend!  He shook his head.  “Just leave me alone,” he said in a completely disheartened voice.  “It would be better if you just leave me alone and forget about me.”
“Why?”
“Because…”  But Roger couldn’t explain it.  He couldn’t tell her that it would be for her own good!  “Because… it would just be better,” he finally said again.
“Humph!” Jennifer grunted, choosing to ignore what was coming out of his mouth.  She started eating her lunch, noting that Roger was trying hard not to look at her.  Did it hurt him that much that she had dumped him?  But there was something major wrong going on in his life right now… and like it or not, she was going to get to the bottom of it! 
She glanced briefly over at another table and caught Stan’s eyes.  She shook her head very slightly.  Stan had purposely sat at another table to give her chance to get something useful out of Roger.  But so far, things weren’t looking too good.  Roger’s rather gloomy disposition today wasn’t helping matters at all.
She tried to lighten the mood.  “So… how is it working in those boots of yours?” she asked as lightheartedly as she could.
Roger looked up at her, totally surprised that she would ask something like that… and his damn cock received another jolt of cold… and it had just started to die down to normal again.  “What do you mean, how is it?”
“I mean… are you enjoying it?”
Roger shrugged.  “Not particularly.”
“Then why do it?”
“Look!” Roger complained angrily.  “Don’t ask.  Just don’t ask!”
Jennifer was taken aback by his attitude, but she wasn’t about to give up now.  She pressed the issue.  “So… are you finding them more difficult to work in than men’s boots?”  Dumb question! But it was the only thing she had been able to think to ask.
Roger shook his head, frustrated that she wouldn’t leave the subject alone.  “Actually, they seem to be okay.  I’ve kind of gotten used to them now.”
“Used to them?” Jennifer was surprised.  But he had at least answered something without telling her to go away.  She kept pressing.  “So… if you’re more used to them… can I see you in them sometime?”
Roger wanted to scream!  “Jennifer… don’t!”
“Don’t what?  I’m really interested!  I really want to see how they look on you!  I’d love to see you in a bra as well,” she said, completely surprised she had said it.  But it was just another thing that had been on her mind about him too. 
Roger was speechless.  He shook his head and searched for anything he could say.  “Don’t!” he finally managed to get out.
“Don’t what?” Jennifer pressed again.  She leaned in closer to him.  “You know I’m going to keep hounding you till you show me, don’t you?  And I can’t help it, I’m just finding it so funny that you… would do something like this.  I mean, women’s boots… and breasts?  It’s just outrageous!”
Roger couldn’t have agreed more, but what could he say?  She was pushing and she wasn’t going to stop.  Once again leaving his lunch unfinished, he got up from the table.  “Just leave me alone!” he said before turning away.  “For your own good, just leave me alone!”
“What do you mean, for my own good?” Jennifer asked.  But she was talking to his back… that was quickly heading out of the room.  For my own good?  What was that supposed to mean? 
She caught Stan’s eye again, and saw him getting up from where he was sitting to come over to her. 
“What happened?” Stan asked.
“You can probably guess,” Jennifer said reluctantly.  “He still won’t open up.  But when he left, he said something weird.  He said, for my own good, I should leave him alone.  What the heck would that mean?”
Stan shook his head.  “I have no idea.  But it sounds more like some even bigger kind of trouble.”  He was startled as a thought hit his brain.  “For your own good?  Does that mean he could be into something dangerous?  Maybe with someone dangerous?”
Jennifer could only stare at him for a moment before replying.  “I don’t know.”

The thunder clap made him jump with fear… as did the lightning flash that he realized was all too close.  He heard a gasp of fear from Carol as well from the passenger seat of his truck as he drove home.  His windshield wipers were on maximum, yet he could hardly see through the pouring rain that had been falling all day.  He had already driven though a few flooded areas that he was fairly sure he wouldn’t have gotten through in his old car. 
“Geez, I can hardly see!” Carol complained.
Roger said nothing, he just did his best to try to see what little of the road in front of him as he could… and keep going.  It was with great relief that he finally turned into the driveway of his house.  Or was that Janice’s house now?  His raincoat was the only thing that kept him from getting totally soaked as he got out of the truck and made the short dash to the front door of the house.
“Get your wet things off immediately,” Janice proclaimed as she hurried toward the two waterlogged people who had just rushed into the house.  “Here, hand me your wet coats, I’ll take them to the laundry area to dry.”  She grabbed the soaked raincoats from both Carol and Roger and rushed them though the house before they dripped too much water on the hardwood floors.
Roger headed for his bedroom to change.  But what should he wear?  If he wanted to eat at the table tonight like a normal human being, that would mean that he would have to wear his dress, and most likely, his wig and makeup as well.  He would have to spend the entire rest of the day as Candy once again.  He didn’t want to do that.  In fact, he didn’t ever really want to do that again.  But he knew that he would now be spending more and more time dressed as a woman.  And Janice had already told him to go buy more clothes so he could do just that.  But one glance out the window… and one major thunderclap later, and he knew that going anywhere today was pretty much out of the question. 
Knowing it was going to be inevitable… only because he didn’t want to sleep in the damn dog cage again tonight, he started dressing… as Candy.  He put one of his bras on and stuffed the cups with two pairs of balled up socks.  He put on another pair of pantyhose to cover his legs.  He put his slip on over the bra… and then he pulled a sweatshirt on over top of that to help keep him warmer while he stood in front of the mirror propped up on his dresser and did his makeup. 
Half an hour later, he was sitting on the floor buckling the very high heeled shoes onto his feet before grabbing his one and only dress… that wasn’t going to be his one and only for much longer.  As he was buckling his second shoe, the whole house suddenly shook… accompanied by an absolutely horrible crash… immediately followed by a very ominous “whump” that again shook the house… that was all followed by a very desperate and frightened scream from a distant part of the house.  Rushing to his feet, Roger did his best to run in those stupid shoes to see what had happened, but the clothes he was wearing, including the shoes, were the furthest thing from his mind.  What had happened?
By the time he got to the living room, he saw a very frightened Janice and Carol running toward him.  “What happened?”
Wide-eyed with fear, Janice could only point toward the kitchen. 
Roger hurried on.  It wasn’t the kitchen that was the problem.  The problem was the laundry room… or rather what was left of it.  Through the broken doorway, he saw branches and young leaves that were just beginning to grow with the warmer spring weather.  A tree had fallen and had just caught the back of the house.  And it had to be one enormous tree to reach that distance from the edge of his property.  But then, most of the trees that ringed the area that had been cleared around his house were enormous trees. 
He quickly surveyed the damage.  The door was broken in.  He couldn’t tell from the inside, but he was betting the roof was damaged as well.  If the tree had fallen just a little bit further forward, it would have totally destroyed the house!  He was lucky.  Or was he?  If it had fallen in a slightly different direction, would it have killed Janice?  She and Carol had been in the kitchen.  There would have been a good chance of that.  So maybe he wasn’t so lucky after all. 
He needed to go outside and assess the total damage.  Not to mention he needed to block the doorway somehow to keep the rain from coming in.  He turned and headed back to his bedroom to change.  He saw Janice and Carol huddled at the entry to the kitchen.  “A tree just missed us,” he said as he headed to change.  “A really big one.”
He left his makeup on.  He never even thought of removing his bra.  He even left on the slip and the pantyhose he had been wearing.  And the sweatshirt he had put on over top of everything to stay warm stayed on as well.  All he removed were the high heeled shoes from his feet.  He grabbed a pair of pants and pulled them.  And then stuffed his feet into the high heeled boots and zipped them up with his pants legs stuffed inside.  Dressed like that, he headed for the back door once again. 
Janice was doing her best to continually mop up the rainwater that was coming in, but it was a constant battle.  She was glad to see Roger finally come back.  “Can’t you do anything about this?” she asked rather desperately. 
“I’m working on it,” was the only reply Roger thought to make.  He grabbed his rain poncho and a baseball hat before heading for the garage door instead.  There was no way he could get through the mess in the laundry room.  A minute later, he pulled the hood up over his head as he stepped outside into the still driving rain… and wind. 
The tree was indeed huge.  And unfortunately, it was also one of the ones he had always particularly liked.  Maybe because it was so big.  But now it stretched from the very edge of his property to somewhere behind his house.  He walked over and examined the root ball.  The howling wind had simply blown the tree over.  The all too soaked ground could no longer hold it.  And the tree had fallen… coming all too close to taking out his house.  He had seen many trees fall like that in his life, but this one was the first to fall on his property.
He climbed over the trunk and headed for his back yard.  He couldn’t get close to his house for all the branches.  It was the outlying branches that had hit his house… and as far as he could tell, they had just barely brushed it.  But a tree of that size, with that much weight, was going to destroy anything that any part of it hit.  It wasn’t hard to see that the small deck off of the back door and the steps going down from it were history.  He couldn’t get close enough to see just how much damage was done to the back door area.  He also couldn’t see just how bad the roof over it was.  The only way he could even begin to do anything… or even see anything, would be to cut away that part of the fallen tree right away. 
Knowing it was going to have to be done – rain storm or not, he headed for his workshop and grabbed his chainsaw.  Fighting his way past as many large branches as he could, he started cutting a path to his back door. 
It was almost an hour and a half before he completely cleared the doorway – the doorway that was nearly level with his chest now because of the deck that had been destroyed. 
“Mr. Brinkley,” Janice shouted out to him from the laundry area inside, “isn’t there some way you can block this rain?”
“I’m working on it!” Roger declared rather angrily.  Damn the woman!  He had been working like crazy, doing difficult hard work just as fast as he could!  What did she expect, a miracle?  It was a miracle that she and Carol hadn’t been killed when the tree fell!  Or was that the real catastrophe.
He ran back to his workshop where he grabbed a ladder and a large tarp.  Twenty minutes later, he was finishing nailing the tarp in place so that the wind wouldn’t blow it away.  It was the best he could do for now.  In doing so, he discovered that the roof over the doorway and part of the garage would have to be rebuilt as well, but it was holding for now. 
Knowing he could do nothing more until the rain stopped, he went back into the house for a much needed rest. 
“How bad is it?” Janice asked as he entered the kitchen again. 
“We got lucky,” Roger replied, thinking that he would have been far luckier if Janice had been killed.  “The deck is gone and the whole back door area including the roof will have to be rebuilt.  But that’s all the damage I was able to see.  I’ll know more when I get into it.  But I’m going to have to cut that tree up and move it first.  And that’s going to have to wait for better weather than this.”
Janice nodded.  “Into every life a little rain must fall, Mr. Brinkley.  In this case, quite literally I guess.”
Roger knew she was trying to make the situation a little lighter, but the rain that had fallen on his life, was far more than a little bit of actual rain.  A major storm had descended on his life, and it was threatening to wash him away completely!

1 comment:

sarah penguin said...

That was very scary. Poor tree :(