The Housekeeper - Chapter 34 Part 2 of 3

The Housekeeper

By Karen Singer

Chapter 34 Part 2 of 3

It wasn’t even dawn yet when Joseph Halifax started to wake out of sleep.  His drugged mind had to struggle to wake up… and when he did finally open his eyes, his slightly spinning brain was slow to make sense of anything.  The light was very dim where he was… coming from somewhere in the distance. 

He rolled over a bit… and heard something clank… and was brought up short by something pulling against his neck.  His hands reached up and found the collar around his neck… and the chain attached to it.  “What the…”

Panic now beginning to flow into him, he sat up quickly.  He was naked.  Totally stark naked!  There was some kind of collar around his neck that he quickly realized was attached to the chain that led… up.  The chain made a slight noise as he struggled to his feet.  He pulled on it, and discovered it was fastened tightly over top of a large beam high above his head.  Where was he?  He searched his foggy brain for some kind of remembrance, but the last thing he remembered was getting into his car at work to drive home.  He didn’t even remember getting home!  What had happened?

He grunted as his fingers now tried to tear at the heavy leather collar around his neck… where he discovered a small lock that prevented him from unbuckling the thing.

“Don’t… touch… the collar!”

The voice startled him.  He looked around in the dimly lit space.  “Who’s there?”

“Don’t… touch… the collar!” the voice said again.

“Hello?” he called, his hands still holding onto the collar wrapped all too tightly around his neck. 

“Last warning,” the voice said.  “Don’t… touch… the collar!”

His brain was functioning only marginally better.  He turned now and saw a woman he’d never seen before, sitting up on a sofa that had been pushed up against the far wall.  The dim light didn’t allow him to see her clearly. 

“Who are…”  The pain fired through his neck and seemed to burn through his entire body as he tore madly but uselessly at the collar around his neck.  It was a long time before the pain finally ended.  He tried desperately again to unfasten the thing.

“Don’t… touch… the collar!” the voice said again.

But his desperation was too much.  He couldn’t help but try to tear open the collar.  The pain erupted once again… just as horribly as it had a few moments before.  And over it, he heard the voice repeating, “Don’t… touch… the collar!  Don’t… touch… the collar!  The pain will end when you stop touching the collar.”  The voice repeated it all three times before he finally got the message.  And when he finally forced himself to move his hands, the pain suddenly ended.  He sank to his knees where his hands automatically went to his neck in relief.  His neck, and of course… the collar.  And the pain erupted once more.  “Don’t… touch… the collar!”  He got the message faster this time.  The pain once again ended when he took his hands away. 

On his knees, he let his head bend down to touch the floor in front of him.  Plastic sheeting?  “Who are you?” he called with his head still touching the floor… his hands held carefully away from his neck.  But he got no answer to his question.  “Who are you?” he demanded again… now pulling his body up straight to look defiantly toward the woman on the sofa.  But she not only didn’t answer, she barely moved.  “What do you want?” he demanded.  But as before… nothing.

His eyes noticed a wooden chair slightly behind him.  Not knowing what it was doing there, he ignored it and continued to watch the strange woman on the couch.  “What do you want?” he asked again.

“I want you to sit in the chair,” the woman told him.

“Why?”  And the pain immediately erupted in his neck again… only not as ferociously as before.  Reflexively, his hands went to the collar again, and the pain seemed to double. 

“Don’t… touch… the collar!  Don’t… touch… the collar!”

It was a moment before he could manage to pull his hands away again.  And the moment he did, the pain was gone.  He breathed in heavy gasps of breath.

“Sit in the chair,” the woman told him again.

He looked at her for a moment.  “The chai…”  And once again the pain hit him.  And once again the moment his hands flew to his neck, the pain doubled.  And once again the voice told him not to touch the collar.  By the time the pain finally ended, he was rolling on his back as much as the short chain would allow, unable to do anything more.  But his hands were well away from the collar.  What little anger had started to fill him, was now replaced completely by fear.

“Sit in the chair.”

He got the message faster this time… although he was physically slow to react.  Forcing himself to his knees… and finally to his feet, he sat down in the chair.  His eyes now noticed an empty plastic bucket, placed just a short distance from the side of the chair.  He had no idea what that was there for and didn’t think he wanted to find out.

“What do you…”  And once again the pain hit his neck, and once again his hands flew to the collar.  As before, the pain didn’t end until he forced his hands away from his neck… and the collar.  He breathed a sigh of relief the moment the pain ended.  He was tempted to ask again what the woman wanted, but he had already gotten the message.  Don’t say anything!

“Stand up!”

He almost questioned her command, but the fear of the pain made him think better of that idea.  But he was still too slow to respond and after a moment, the pain hit him again.  Not as strong as it could have been, but it was still painful!

“Stand up!” the voice commanded again… through the pain that was still burning through his neck. 

Despite the pain, he managed to stand on his feet… and the pain instantly died.  He breathed a silent sigh of relief.

“Sit down!”

“He turned toward the woman in disbelief… and received another round of pain. 

“Sit down!” the voice repeated. 

He sat quickly… and the pain ended the moment his bottom hit the seat.

“Stand up!”

This time, he got the message.  He stood up… and was rewarded with no pain.  Relief. 

“Sit down!” the voice commanded again. 

The small shock he got for being slow didn’t help him at all.

Carol sat at the kitchen table and watched it all.  She had been sound asleep in the big downstairs bed when the noise of what was happening woke her up.  Staying as silent and unnoticed as possible, she made her way to the kitchen table where she did her best to not interrupt anything her mother was doing.  Slowly, little by little, she watched as her mother led Joseph Halifax inextricably along the road to total obedience.

What a pleasure!  Roger did his best to ignore the now tiny breasts sticking out from his chest as well as the stupid women’s boots attached to his feet.  He was otherwise dressed in his work clothes… although the breasts and boots were now part of that uniform.  He had woken up early in Janice’s bed, proud of the fact that he had slept there.  It was as if sleeping there had given him a small way of getting back at her.  A very small way.  Miniscule actually.  But the effort made him feel better.  He had remade the bed again afterwards, hoping she would never notice. 

He had stopped and grabbed his breakfast from the drive-thru of a fast food restaurant… no way he was going inside with those boots on if he didn’t have to.  As he pulled into the driveway of the Whittaker house, he shoved the last morsel of his breakfast into his mouth.  It had tasted good!  Even better since he didn’t have to eat it from his dog bowl.  Grabbing what was left of his coffee, he got out of his truck and walked around to the back of the house. 

As far as he could tell, the Whittakers weren’t even up yet, but they would be as soon as he started making some noise.  Everything looked soaked from all the rain the day before.  It would most likely be hours before everything dried out – if it didn’t start raining again.  But he had seen on TV last night that the weatherman wasn’t calling for any chance of rain until later this afternoon.  The way things had been going though, he had no doubt that it would start raining sometime before the day was over with.

He set his coffee cup on top of a pile of wet boards and headed back to his truck to grab some tools.  He was hoping to get a lot done on the deck today.  That is… if his friends would just leave him alone so he could work.

The woman was standing in front of him now, but that thought didn’t fully register as he continued to follow her commands as fast as he could.  Stand up… sit down… raise your right arm… raise your left arm… lower your right arm… raise your right leg.  Over and over, faster and faster.  If he didn’t do it fast enough, those quick dreaded shocks would race through him.  And the commands were coming at him relentlessly. 

“You don’t have time to think.  Let me do the thinking for you.  Let me control your body not you.  You don’t have time to control your body.  Sleep and obey.  Sleep and obey.”  It was becoming too much for him.  His brain couldn’t process the requests fast enough.  In desperation, or maybe it was out of sheer exhaustion, his brain began shutting down more and more, and Janice started to take over. 

The signs were small, but they were there.  As much as she had to concentrate hard on what she was saying, she barely realized what words were coming out of her mouth anymore.  Over and over her words pounded at him.  She hadn’t pressed the button on her remote control in a while now.  She barely gave the device in her hand another thought.  Her attention now was more riveted on his face… and particularly, on his eyes. 

She knew when he was hers.  There was absolutely no doubt about it.  The blank, wooden look to his face, the staring, unseeing eyes.  His body moved immediately to her commands, but she was moving him, not his brain.  “Sleep and obey, Mr. Halifax.  Sleep and obey.” 

Her commands came slower now.  More purposeful, easier.  Yet he remained completely in her control.  He never had a chance, not with the way she went about it.  “Sleep and obey, Mr. Halifax.  Sleep and obey.”  Slowly, she took him down further and further… deeper and deeper.  And finally, he was sitting calmly in his chair, looking blankly ahead, just waiting for another command for his body to obey. 

Janice stopped and stared at him.  It had taken a long time, but then the first time always did.  The first time was always the most difficult.  She was tired – exhausted!  She needed a little more sleep – and even more so, a good drink of something to help her parched throat.  It was time to stop for a little while… before she would have to start it all over again. 

“There’s a bucket next to your chair if you need it,” Janice told him.  “You can use it to relieve yourself in any way you have to.  Don’t even think about modesty.  You no longer need to consider that at all.”

She watched as he did indeed get up from his chair, stand over the bucket, and pee into it.  Some of the pee missed the bucket.  She was glad she had put the plastic down on the floor.  When he was done, he just stood there, his hands still holding his limp penis, his eyes staring blindly straight ahead. 

“What plans did you have for Saturday?” she asked him.  She saw him suddenly smile with a faraway expression on his face. 

“Lisa.  Lisa from Friday night to Sunday.”

Janice pursed her lips.  Lisa would have to be accounted for, but not till later.

“Lay down on the floor and sleep now,” she told him.  His body immediately began laying down.  He had to move to a spot where the short chain attached to his collar would let him get his head down to the floor.  “You will not awaken until I call your name, Mr. Halifax.  You will sleep soundly until that time.  And when you do wake up, you will come completely awake.  You will have full control of your body and mind once again.  “Sleep now Mr. Halifax.  Sleep.”

That fast, Joseph Halifax fell into a very deep, dreamless, slumber.

Janice headed to the kitchen where she saw Carol sitting.

“You okay?” Carol asked.

“Just tired dear,” Janice replied, her voice slightly hoarse as she walked over and planted a kiss on her daughter’s head.  Then, just because she like to, she hugged her daughter for a while… and enjoyed the hug she got back in return.  “I’m hungry!” she finally declared as she pulled herself away.  “And I need something to drink really bad!”

Carol laughed a bit.  “Coming right up!” she said as she jumped up from her chair… and her mother sat wearily down in another one.

The day turned warmer, and Roger removed his jacket.  He had to get used to displaying his stupid little breasts off in front of everyone anyway.  And the Whittakers were only occasionally looking out the window to see how he was doing now.  The novelty of the show was over.  He felt a bit of relief at that. 

His phone rang and he hurried to pull it out of his pocket.  The number wasn’t one he recognized.  “Hello?”

“Mr. Brinkley?”

“Yes.”

“This is Thomas McCrary.  I’m a friend of Rebecca Adkins.  She said you fixed a window for her.”

“Yes I did.  What can I do for you?”

“You don’t by any chance fix leaking roofs do you?”

“It depends on the damage,” Roger replied.  “I prefer not to do entire roofs if I can help it, but I guess I will if I have to.  But minor repairs I can definitely take care of.”

“Well, we’ve got a bad leak that’s now dripping down through the ceiling of our bedroom… and the ceiling is all stained around where it’s leaking.  Any chance you can come out to take a look?”

Roger glanced at the job he was currently trying to do.  He had been making good progress today.  “I guess so,” he replied.  But it’s going to have to be later this afternoon sometime.”

“That’s fine,” Mr. McCrary replied.  He gave Roger his address. 

Roger now had a deck to finish for the Whittakers, some rooms to paint for Rebecca Adkin’s daughter, and now a leaky roof to fix for some friend of Rebecca’s as well.  The jobs were starting to pile in on top of each other.  And none of that included fixing his own house! 

That was why he never did this kind of work until school let out.  He didn’t have time!