The Housekeeper - Chapter 54 Part 2 of 2

The Housekeeper

By Karen Singer

Chapter 54 Part 2 of 2

Roger wasn’t crazy about the idea of going shopping, even though that’s exactly what he had been thinking of doing for quite some time now.  He was simply embarrassed to be out in public pretending to be a woman again when he obviously wasn’t.  He wasn’t naive enough to think that he could live his life as a woman and not need more things, particularly clothes.  But if he was going to live his life as a woman, what kind of clothes would Janice allow him to wear?  Real woman didn’t wear dresses and skirts and heels all the time.  Whenever possible, they wore t-shirts and shorts and flip flops.  Comfortable clothes.

He was wearing nice clothes again as he rode in the back seat of Janice’s small SUV.  Nice slacks, a nice top, pantyhose, the heels he wore to church, his wig, makeup… and of course his corset.  Janice had insisted on all of it.  No surprise.  At least he wasn’t wearing a dress… but Janice had mentioned that she would help him find another one that would be suitable for church.  Oh goody!  But… he knew already that he needed another dress for church.  It was one of the things he had been thinking about.  He remembered another little item he wanted as well.  Well, maybe not so little.  “Excuse me, Janice,” he called from the back seat.

“Yes Candy?”

“Um… I was thinking,” Roger began, “would it be possible… I mean…”

“What is it Candy?” Janice asked.

“I’d like to get a mirror for my room,” Roger blurted out.  “Something big enough to see myself in.  All of me.”

The request caught Janice by surprise, and she nearly laughed.  “Yes of course, Candy.  I think it’s an excellent idea.”

“Can I have one too, Momma?” Carol asked. 

“Certainly dear.  You only had to ask.”

But now that Roger was making requests… and Janice seemed to be in a fairly good mood, he decided to press his next question.  “Um… since I’m going to be living completely as a woman very soon now, I just wanted to ask, what kind of clothes can I buy?”

“What do you mean?” Janice asked, not understanding the question.

“I mean… do I have to wear heels all the time, or can I get something more comfortable?  And how about things like shorts and t-shirts, things that I see all the other women wearing.”

Janice smiled.  “I see no problem with you wearing any of it… as long as it’s appropriate dress for wherever you’re at.  I will expect you to wear a dress to church, and I also think that some kind of heel there would be the best for you as well.  But everywhere else, if you’re away from the house, then I expect you to look nice and take pride in your appearance as any other woman would.  You do know of course the way I want you to dress when you’re doing your handy-girl jobs.”

“How about at home though?” Roger asked.

“At home?”  She thought about that for a few minutes.  “Yes, I see nothing wrong with you owning a few pairs of shorts and some comfortable shoes.  I just don’t want that to be all I ever see you in or I will declare your more comfortable clothes to be off limits!  Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes,” Roger replied.  “No problem.”  To him, by all appearances, Janice seemed to be allowing him a normal life… a normal woman’s life.  Somewhat anyway.  He guessed he should be grateful for that.

A little while later, Roger discovered that buying some of the more comfortable women’s clothes was out… at least on that shopping trip.  Janice and Carol seemed to have some other agenda in mind as they led him straight past all of the more casual clothes and directly to the nicer clothes.

As much as Roger was trying hard to get accustomed to dressing as a woman, and being in public as a woman, and even buying clothes as a woman, he still found it horribly humiliating to have to go into a changing room and try on a dress.  Having to come out again and model it for Janice and Carol didn’t exactly make him feel any better about the situation either… especially when he could always see the stares of other customers all too often watching him.  As always, he tried to ignore them, which was mostly impossible. 

It took very little time to find him a new dress for church, although in a size smaller than he had been buying – to Janice’s delight.  It seemed that his new corset, along with eating less had already helped him to lose enough weight to go down one size. 

After the dresses, Carol and Janice moved on toward the racks of skirts.  And Roger noticed that all the skirts they seemed to be considering for him were all fairly dressy looking straight skirts.  Only finding a few that Janice thought might be nice enough, she moved on to looking at women’s suits for him – skirt suits.  And that’s where she found what she wanted.

“Oh look at this, Carol,” she said as she held up a straight grey skirt and matching jacket.  I think it’s a lovely outfit.  If we pair it with a nice blouse it will be perfect for Candy to wear to church too.”

“A suit, Momma?” Carol asked.

Roger was wondering the same thing.

“Of course dear.  Every woman needs a nice suit to wear once in a while.”

“Not me!” Carol exclaimed.

Janice smiled knowingly.  “Give it a few years,” she said.  “I have no doubt you’ll own several by the time you graduate college.”

“Not likely!” Carol replied.

Janice only smiled at her daughter’s comment.  She handed Roger the skirt and jacket combination to take to the changing room.  Roger checked the sizes before he got undressed, they were the same as the new dress size they had just found for him.  He tried them on, leaving on the casual top he was already wearing under the jacket.  The skirt was somewhat tight in the waist and against the top of his legs, although he still had more than enough room available at his hips.  Once dressed, he went out to “model” the outfit.

“It needs a nicer blouse,” Janice noted right away.  “But we can look for one another time.”  She spent a few moments checking the fit of the jacket… and especially the skirt.  “I think this should do nicely,” she said to her daughter.  “What do you think?”

“I like it,” Carol replied.  “As long as I don’t have to wear it,” she added.

Janice only shook her head and smiled.  “Go take it off, Candy,” she said.  “We’ll take that and the dress we found for you.”

It almost seemed to Roger like Janice was hurrying them out of the stores.  He didn’t even get a chance to find the mirrors he and Carol wanted.  And before he knew it, they were heading home again.  He was strangely happy though that he now had another dress he could wear to church.  And he was even happier to be quickly out of the public eye once more.

It was dishearteningly dark as Janice pulled into the parking lot of a small strip mall not far from Jacob’s house.  The storm clouds were overhead, blocking out any sign of the stars or moon, but at least it wasn’t raining… yet.  “Okay, your turn to drive,” Janice told her daughter.  She got out of the car and walked around, passing her daughter going the opposite direction.  The both got into the car again.  Carol put it in gear, and pulled out of the parking lot and continued on up the road – away from Jacob’s house. 

Janice was dressed completely in black.  She pulled her tote bag from the floor up into her lap and pulled out two burner phones and activated them.  She took a few minutes to set the phone books in them up so they could easily call each other on them.  She set the phones aside and pulled out a tin of black face-paint.  She began spreading it all over her face and the back of her neck, wiping out most of the area where her skin might reflect light, making it more difficult for anyone to see her.

“Okay, dear, let’s head back now,” she said to her daughter.

Carol turned the black SUV around and headed back towards Agent Jacob’s house. 

Janice pulled a small penlight out of her large tote bag and put it in her pocket.  Then she pulled black gloves onto her hands.  “That’s his street ahead,” she told her daughter. 

Carol turned onto the street and drove somewhat slowly down it, never stopping or pausing, but heading all the way to the end of the street.  As they passed Jacobs’ house, Janice searched it carefully for any sign of someone home.  She half expected to see some kind of light, but the house appeared to be totally dark, almost unoccupied.  “Looks clear enough,” she said.

While Carol drove all the way around the block, Janice picked up the cell phones.  She placed one in the cup holder for Carol to use, the other she put in her pocket so she could call Carol to pick her up when she was done.  As Carol drove past Jacobs’ house again, she stopped very briefly in front of the house while Janice jumped quickly out and pulled her tote bag with her.  Not pausing, she softly closed the car door so it wouldn’t make a sound.  Carol had the car in motion almost too soon. 

Janice didn’t run, she walked as if she belonged there.  She headed straight for the backyard.  She felt somewhat relieved as soon as she reached it since there was less chance of anyone seeing her there.  She quickly checked what she could see of the house very carefully.  No sign of life.  Either Jacobs was sound asleep or he wasn’t home.  At that late hour, she was betting that he was sound asleep.

She headed directly for the side of the garage… and in particular, the far end of the wood pile that her pictures had just barely shown her from her drive past in the car.  She needed to pull her penlight out to see clearly enough to even see the wood pile.  Once she found it though, she ran her light over the cut pieces of wood, checking them out very carefully.  She was somewhat surprised to note that all the wood looked old and rotten.  Bug eaten!  She would never allow such logs into her house – even to be thrown into the fire. 

Setting her tote bag down, she started pulling the wood off of the pile at the very back end, being very careful to be as silent as possible.  With every log that she moved, she worried about spiders and even possibly a snake!  The dim light from her penlight didn’t show her much detail… something she was grateful for incase there were spiders on the logs… which she had no doubt of. 

Piece by piece, she removed the wood until she was down to the bottom and only bare earth remained over several feet of ground where the end of the log pile had been.  From her tote bag, she pulled out a small garden trowel.  In the middle of the freshly cleared earth, she began digging.  The dirt was very soft from all the rain, so the task was somewhat easy, even with just the small tool she was using.  She dug down deeper and deeper, then began widening the hole.  But her small trowel hit something as she tried to widen her hole in the direction of where the rest of the wood was piled.  Cursing, she began moving more of the dirt around whatever it was, hoping that she could move it and get it out of her way. 

Realizing that whatever was blocking her digging was actually fairly soft… at least part of it, she stopped and picked up her penlight so she could see what it was better.  It was very hard to see what she was looking at in the hole.  She reached and tried to feel it.  It felt strange.  She began moving more dirt from on top of it with just her hands, finally uncovering the top to a large heavy duty plastic trash bag.  What was a trash bag doing buried there?  And it obviously held something. 

Her penlight showed her that the top of the bag was tied into a knot.  She had to remove her gloves to slowly work the knot loose.  She was afraid of what she might find inside… the most likely thing she expected was the remains of some dead animal that Jacobs might have buried there.  The knot opened and she untwisted the plastic.  She pulled the bag open.  She needed her penlight to see inside.  She stared at the contents for a very, very long time.   

She had seen something exactly like what that bag held – once.  The one and only time she had seen it had been at her trial.  The trial where she had been convicted of something she had never done – possession of heroin with intent to sell.  She had never even seen a block of heroin like that before… all wrapped up in its own plastic wrapper.  But now she was looking at a lot of those miserable little blocks.  She had no idea how much all those blocks might be worth, but she was betting it was a small fortune. 

The evidence in her hands made everything perfectly clear.  The drugs in front of her appeared to match the drugs that had been shown at her trial.  It had been Jacobs who had planted that heroin in her car.  It had to be.  As far as she could see, there was no other answer!