The Housekeeper - Chapter 48 Part 1 of 4

The Housekeeper

By Karen Singer

Chapter 48 Part 1 of 4

When Roger and Carol got home from school on Friday afternoon, they found Janice anxiously waiting on them.  In fact, she held the front door open so they could get in the house faster. 

“Hurry up, please,” Janice said, trying to get them to move a bit faster.

“What’s going on?” Carol asked as she went past her mother into the house.

“We have somewhere we need to be this afternoon,” Janice replied.  She turned to Roger as he got into the house as well.  “Carol and I will be leaving soon for the rest of the day.  I’m sure you can manage dinner for yourself.”

“No problem,” Roger replied.  “Is there any chance I can go look at one of the jobs I got called about?”

“That’s an excellent idea,” Janice approved.  “And today you won’t have to worry about being late for dinner since Carol and I won’t be back until very late tonight.  So just go to bed and don’t wait up for us.”

Roger was surprised, but he nodded.  She and Carol had taken their little trips before.  “Do you need me to load your cleaning supplies into the car for you?”

Janice smiled.  “Thank you for asking, but we won’t need them tonight.”  She turned to Carol.  “Don’t bother helping with his corset tonight.  He’ll just have to do without it this time.”  She stood back from her daughter for a second to look her over.  “Can you change that top for something nicer before we go out?  We’ll be taking some pictures later.”

That surprised Carol.  “Sure, no problem.”

“Hurry dear,” Janice urged as her daughter turned to hurry to her room.  “And you might as well bring your school work with you as well tonight since were going to be there so late.”

Carol looked back briefly with a somewhat exasperated look on her face.

As far as Roger was concerned, the problem with life, was that it sucked!  He pulled his truck into the driveway of what appeared to be a very middle-class house… in the middle of a very middle-class subdivision.  From what he could see, it didn’t look like the house had any major problems.  From where he sat anyway.  Which meant that now he had to get out of his truck and go knock on the front door… and face meeting his clients dressed completely as – Candy. 

When he had gotten dressed earlier to meet this client, the larger “C” cup breasts had made it very apparent that he could no longer try to dress even partially as a man.  His image in the mirror had seemed to need a more feminine hair style so he had put his wig on, and he was hoping his makeup would improve the way he looked as well. 

He was more than a bit nervous as he knocked on the client’s door.  He was even more nervous as the inner door was opened and a woman appeared behind the glass of the outer storm door.  “May I help you?” she asked uncertainly as she looked Roger over.

“You called about needing some damage repaired?” Roger replied.

“My husband called someone,” the woman said.  “But…”

“That was me, I’m afraid.”

She seemed surprised as she looked at Roger rather dubiously.  “Is this a joke of some sort?” she asked.

Roger shook his head.  “I’m afraid not.  I’m going through… a transition.”

The woman blinked in surprise.  “Oh!  You’re… one of those.”

Roger only nodded.

“You do construction work but you’re trying to change your gender?  To a woman?”

“I’m afraid so,” Roger replied.  “Look, if you’re not comfortable having me here, I totally understand.  I’ll be glad to leave.”

The woman seemed uncertain and just looked at Roger for a few moments.

Roger finally nodded and turned away.  He was halfway back to his truck when she opened the door and called him.

“Wait!”

Roger turned.  “You’re sure you can fix our problem?”

Roger did his best to smile.  “I haven’t seen what it is yet, but from what your husband told me, I’m pretty sure I should have no trouble with it.”

“And you do this kind of work all the time?” she asked.  “I thought my husband said you teach school.  But if you dress this way…”

“I do teach school,” Roger replied.  “For now anyway.  And no, I don’t dress like this for school.  Just… all the rest of the time.”

She still seemed a bit uncertain, but after a moment she replied.  “Very well.  Since you’re here, you may as well take a look.”

“Glad to,” Roger replied.

“Walk around back,” she said, “I’ll meet you there.”

A few minutes later, Roger was looking up at a window where it looked like some of the trim had come lose and water had started leaking into the house.

“I’ve never met someone like you,” the woman said as Roger was trying to see what he would need to fix the problem.

Roger wasn’t sure how to answer that.  “Well,” he started, “until a short time ago, I hadn’t met anyone like me either.”  He pointed to the window.  “It looks like the wind has torn up the trim on top and it’s letting the water in.  Most likely either the caulking is old or it got pulled out with the trim board.  If you like, I can fix this today.  It shouldn’t take me too long at all.”

“If you can do it, that would be great,” the woman replied.

Roger went back to his truck where he buckled his tool belt around his waist and filled it with everything he thought he would need.  Then he grabbed his ladder and carried it back to the problem window.  The woman was still there.

“Goodness!” she said.  “Are you going to climb that thing in those boots?”

Roger smiled.  “I do everything in these boots.”

The woman said nothing while he set his ladder up.  He climbed up to get a better look at the job.

“What’s your name?” she asked.

“Roger,” he replied as he took a closer look at the problem.  He couldn’t see much so he began carefully prying the loose trim board completely off.

“Do you have… any other name?” the woman asked uncertainly.

The board finally came completely off and Roger carefully dropped it to the ground where it would be out of the way.  “You mean, a female name?” he asked.

Since he was now looking at her, instead of answering directly, she just shrugged and nodded her head.

“Candy,” Roger replied.  “That’s going to be my new name.”  He went back to inspecting the caulking job.  “Here’s the real problem,” he said as he poked at the old caulking with a screwdriver, “the caulking is all old and dried out.”

“Can you fix it?” she asked.

Roger looked down and smiled.  “Of course!  I’ll redo all the caulking around the window.  Otherwise it’s only going to start leaking from somewhere else.”  He got busy removing all the other trim boards from around the window.

“So you’re going to call yourself Candy?” she asked after a few minutes.

“Yep!” he replied as he struggled with one of the boards.

“Then… would it be better if I called you Candy now instead of Roger?”

He stopped working to consider that.  “I guess it is a lot more appropriate now,” he admitted.  Something about that felt like he had just lost something.  Something important.

The woman stayed and watched him and talked with him the entire time he worked.  She made particular note of how well he seemed to manage in his high heeled boots every time he had to move the ladder. 

Shortly before he finished, her husband came home.  Roger watched out of the corner of his eye as the man kissed his wife, then looked up at him.  The man seemed more than startled.

“I had heard that you wore some women’s boots when you worked, but I didn’t realize that you went… all the way.”

Roger stopped working.  “This is… a more recent development,” he replied.  He didn’t want to tell him that today he had gone further with the way he dressed for these jobs than he ever had before. 

“He’s calling himself Candy now,” the woman told her husband.

“Candy?” he asked.

Roger just nodded before he started putting his hammer back to work reinstalling one of the trim boards.

“So what was wrong with the window?” the man asked.

“A loose trim board,” Roger replied.  “But the real problem was all the old caulking.  I’m betting the rest of the windows are that bad too.”

“So does that mean they’re going to start leaking too?”

Roger just shrugged.  “It’s very possible.”  He finished nailing the board back in place and climbed down from his ladder.  “That should do it,” he said.

“So it won’t leak now?”

“I’m fairly sure it won’t,” Roger replied as he folded up his ladder and picked it up.  He carried it back to his truck with both the man and woman following him.  He stuck the ladder in the bed of his truck and removed his tool belt as well.

“Will you take a check for this?” the man asked.

“Of course,” Roger replied.  “No problem.”

The woman offered to get the check book and hurried into the house.  Roger pulled his receipt pad out of the cab of his truck and started writing up the bill.  The woman was back quickly with their checkbook.  Roger finished writing his bill, but before giving it to them, he looked at them for a moment.  They had watched and talked to him the entire time he had worked.  On a spur of the moment decision, he reached back into his truck and grabbed his purse.  He pulled his lipstick out and a compact mirror.  He applied a fresh coat of lipstick while they looked on.  He didn’t bother looking up at them while he did it.  He knew they were probably surprised by his action.  Only when he had finished with his lipstick did he present the bill to them.

The man set the checkbook against the front of Roger’s truck to start writing.  “Do I make this out to Roger Brinkley… or Candy?” he asked.

“It’s still Roger,” Roger replied softly.

“For how much longer?” the man asked.

Roger made no reply.