Housepainter - slow steady strokes
Painting houses is hot and tedious. The hours are long and the pay is irregular.
As long as I can keep my crew busy, we do ok. See, its my job to work the street during one job, rustling up the next job.
If people can see what how it improves the look of their place by visiting a job underway, the sale is much easier. Still, I have to hustle to keep our schedule full.
The one saving grace is my crew. Four painters, three of us college students and one senior in High School. We can get a suburban ranch done in 2 days, including trim and gutters.
I do the stripping first using a high-pressure sprayer. Takes 90 minutes, two hours max if it's a two-story.
Usually I have Gigi and Dutch doing the bulk painting - siding, doors, garage and so on. They are a good team, swapping high/low and moving ladders effortlessly. Like ballet I tell them.
For trim I generally ask the High Schooler Lacy. She's careful, has a good eye. Doesn't hardly ever spill which is important doing gutters.
Gutters get oil paint not latex, because they're generally metal around here and latex will peel from metal in a season.
It has to go on with slow steady strokes, to get even coverage and not spatter. It's a bitch to clean up oil paint, so I don't want to have to do it.
Gigi and Dutch are great but impatient - they won't slow down. So they don't do gutters.
Once the stripping is done I head out down the street, knocking on doors, lining up the next gig. I'm called the 'rambler', and I'm the senior member of the crew.
Mostly because I did it last summer and the rest are green, just hired this year. I'm only a year older than Gigi and Dutch; 3 years older than Lacy. Lots of turnover in this job. Do it one summer, hot, sweaty and you smell like linseed oil all the time, the next summer most folks find something easier.
I don't mind. Outdoor work is what I'm cut out for. Dark hair, brown as a nut from the sun. Don't have to work out because the job is enough, lifting and climbing ladders and humping gear in and out of the truck, I get all the exercise I want. Something like a six-pack and plenty of core strength.
So it's halfway thru the summer, a dozen jobs under our belt, our routine is down. Start at 6, work to noon, hour for lunch, break at 5. A ten hour day but then we're paid by the hour. Then it's off to the beach or the mall most days.
Anyway today it's a scorcher, getting on toward noon, lunchtime and I'm coming back with the next two houses lined up. A good morning. Put the paperwork in the truck cab, lock up.
I decide what the hell, let them get lunch early today, take an extra half hour. They can maybe sit inside somewhere and cool off.
"Gigi! Dutch! Looking good! Break for lunch, go find some pizza and AC."
They smile, don't have to tell them twice. Gigi climbs down, they stick brushes in a bucket of water and snap lids on paint buckets.
Dutch is a stocky hairy guy, used to hard work. Farm kid, doing some ag studies of some sort. Kind as can be, genial, uncomplaining.
Gigi is a soccer player for the U, doing a physical therapy degree. Short-cropped hair, amazing shoulders, Roman nose.
Dutch throws his shirt back on. Gigi is wearing shorty shorts and a tube top, low-top sneakers, too hot for much else. She has a light cotton shirt she grabs from the truck, will need that in the AC. Off they hare, it's just a couple blocks downtown to pizza and Chinese joints.
They don't wait up for Lacy, as she always brings her lunch. Frugal, saving for college. I don't usually join them. I buy the beer on Friday but it's not Friday.
Head around back to let Lacy know, and I find her on a ladder doing the gutters. It's two-story over the attached garage, so she's on the extension ladder.
She's a sight - all tan lean arms and legs, brown hair in a pony tail wrapped in a kerchief. Loose paint shirt over a boob tube, not buttoned. Compression shorts, flats.
Skin shades from a healthy tan to deep amber over her shoulders, her feet.
The way her back stretches when she reaches with the brush...the play of her muscles under her skin is mesmerizing. She's a star on the volleyball team and it shows, her conditioning excellent. She chose this summer gig to stay fit, and it's working. She's fit.
I watch her for a bit. Really easy on the eyes. A study in relaxed concentration, paintbrush held just so, right angle of attack, stroke like an ink-jet printer, even and perfect. Makes it look so easy.
A picture of health and athleticism, in that way only High School Seniors can pull off.
Leaning to the right to meet what she'd done already, brush running out of paint just as the stroke is complete.
"Hey Lacy! Looking good! Slow steady strokes..."
Lacy turns to look, shifts her weight, paint bucket swinging over as she turns to see me.
And in slow motion - one leg of the ladder sinks into the lawn, the other on a stepping stone set in the lawn stays put, the ladder starts to tilt and then to slide.
It scrapes across the gutter with a metallic screech, like the Titanic going down. The most awful sound in the world.
A brush in one hand, a bucket in the other, she figures it out in a flash, doesn't miss a beat, straightens, starts to back-pedal down the ladder, legs pistoning.
Somehow she keeps a hold on the brush and bucket, balancing with her arms against the ladder as she shoots down, going fast but not gonna make it.
I run to help, get under the ladder, ready to catch but it's no use, the angle is already too much to save it. Halfway down, her feet still above my head and coming down fast, she jumps.
Good call! Better to land in the grass, than get tangled in the ladder and break something.
But she piles into me feet first. I try to grab something, break her fall, but I only get shirt. She hits me like a ton of bricks.
We go down together, on the grass thank god. The ladder continues to the patio, lands with a clatter, the legs kicking up sod.
She's face to face with me, paintbrush between us, bucket dashed to the ground, her breasts pressed into me.
It would be a meet-cute if it didn't hurt. My head banged the ground pretty good. Her body-slam took the wind out of me. Her legs hit me in the hips upon collision before continuing to scrape the shit out of my leg.
A beat while we both got our breath back.
"You ok?!" she asks, real concern in her voice.
"I think so. Nothing broken. You?"
She untangled her arms, freeing the one between us by letting go of the brush, levering herself up and getting her legs under her.
She stood in one fluid motion, then flexing her arms carefully one at a time.
"Wrenched my shoulder and tweaked a knee, but everything still works. I'm ok."
From my vantage point on the ground she looked more than ok. Her shirt was torn where I'd grabbed it, one sleeve completely detached and slumped around her wrist. The rest off one shoulder in a fashion-model casual style.
The boob tube askew and with a wet smear of green paint (the customer's idea not mine!) right across one boob and down her chest.
The paint bucket had apparently splashed across one thigh, leaving a snazzy slash of green across the tan and continuing across one sweet muscular buttock.
I stared a little too obviously, getting a wry grin from her.
"I must look a mess! What are we going to do about this paint?"
She shucked carefully out of the wreck of the shirt, tossing the parts in the grass.
"Sorry about the shirt! I was trying to catch you!"
"My hero? I guess. Sorry about the body-slam. That had to hurt."
I stood, wincing at the minced leg. She grimaced in sympathy. The brush unpeeled itself from my chest and plopped onto the grass, leaving a large green brush-silhouette.
"I'm gonna be fine. Just glad neither of us broke anything. I'll get some rags from the truck."
She called after. "I've done so well all summer! This is my first spill!"
She was right. She'd done far better than the rest of us, spotless at the end of every day.
I stripped the shirt carefully on my way around the house, wadded it up paint-side on the inside and dumped it in the back of the truck. A rag I wore for painting, I wouldn't miss it. But the paint had gone clear through, and I was liberally green across my chest.
Grabbing the bundle of shop rags, a can of thinner and a tin of linseed oil, I put everything in an empty tub we used for rinsing brushes.
Coming around the back - Lacy was rubbing her legs with a hank of grass, not helping much, just smearing it around and making it worse.
"Let me help!"
I handed over a rag, popped the lid off the thinner, took another rag and wet it.
"The trick is to blot, not smear." I said helpfully.
Kneeling I started at the bottom of her thigh, blotting, turning my rag and using a fresh bit each time.
It works pretty well, leaving just a light green tint that'll wear away in time.
Concentrating hard on the task, trying to ignore those compression shorts just a few inches away from my face, and what they concealed.
I was nearly done when her leg started wiggling.
"Hey! Stay...."
I trailed off, looking up at her, rag in my hand forgotten.
She was peeling off her tube top! Rolling it up from the bottom, careful to contain the paint inside the roll. Making a band of it, she carefully pulled each arm thru and took it gently over her head.
Leaving her bare-chested. I could not stop staring. Two beautiful teen tits, conical and perky, bright pink aereolas, nipples like pencil erasers.
She pretended not to notice me staring, unrolling the top and making a wry expression.
"This thing is ruined!"
I found my voice.
"We might save it. Here." I reached for it, and she handed it to me. I managed by some miracle not to stare at her tits. I turned away reluctantly, filled the tub with thinner and plunged the top in, swishing it around.
"Let it soak, while I deal with the rest."
