Author's Note: If you're just arriving, a brief synopsis. Emily, a bright, overly confident, North American, white 18 year old, has decided to enlist the help of one of the contractors doing a remodel in her home. She's discovered a secret room, The Study, that has been walled up since forever. In exchange for his help, not only in opening the room, but in teaching her construction and training her in sex, she's agreed to offer her body to him. She's just started and is already concerned by what she's committed to.
She woke up refreshed, oddly, and excited about the combo—it was the first time Coach would put all three legs together, even if they weren't properly back to back. She felt ready in spite of the recent distractions in her sex life.
Sex life!
It was the first time she even thought she might have one. Her buns were sensitive and she worried she'd be uncomfortable sitting on the bike, but the irritation was only skin deep, still like a slight sunburn. It was distracting, but after the first few minutes it drifted into the background of aches and pains. At the start of the practice the images from the day before had popped in and out, but by the end she had focused her attention on the race.
Like the day before, the weather started out cool and humid, the air heavy but fresh. At the end of the third leg she was drenched in sweat, her clothes felt like they added 10 lbs.
At least it won't be like this on race day.
At least she hoped it wouldn't. Coach kept telling them that it was better to train in these conditions, and even though she hated how bad her times were, she knew it was mostly because of the weather. Mostly but not completely. She cursed herself on the way back home. Coach had pulled her aside and pointed out her crappy times in the third leg, a segment she should have nailed. It was because of what she was doing with Cos, but she couldn't tell him that. He knew something was up, though. He asked her if she had her priorities straight.
Fuck!
Back at the house she raced upstairs again, her clothes cold and uncomfortable. The crew was already hard at it and she wanted to see if there was anything Cos needed her to do before she made plans.
"Hey," she greeted him in the kitchen. Showered, dressed and still riding the high from her practice, she pulled down a pan to fry up eggs. "I'm heading out for a few hours. Do you need me to pick up any supplies or materials or?"
He looked up from the stairwell. "Did you do your homework?"
She looked around wildly, wondering how he could have known about all of her research, until she realized she was being an idiot.
He looked at her strangely. "It wasn't a life-or-death thing. I just thought you wanted to...."
"No, that's not it. I did it. Yeah. It was a trick question." She pulled out the eggs and butter. Cheese. She'd have cheese today.
He grunted. "Not so much, but okay. What'd you figure out?"
She'd calculated the square footage of the closet wall and, just because, she went online to see what sort of paneling was available. That's when she realized it only came in certain widths and heights. Furniture plywood came in 4'x8' sheets, but the more specialty paneling came in strips of varying lengths. She assumed he wasn't going to go custom on her, so she took the total area and assuming 4x8 figured out how many panels he would need. But there was another problem: the ceiling height. It was 9'. She wasn't sure what he was going to do about that.
"Okay," he stopped what he was doing and looked at her. "That's good. That's about right. The ceiling is one problem, but I'll tell you how we'll deal with that. The problem is waste. Did you figure that in? If you want the door hidden, you'll have to figure in how much coverage you're going to get for each panel."
She studied the eggs and thought about it, picturing the closet wall with a door coming out of it. "How wide is the door?"
"3 feet."
Would it matter where the door went? She quickly decided it didn't, but that was an interesting question. Where
did
she want the door?
3 feet.
So, now she had to figure the length of the wall, divide it by three rather than four, if she wanted the door to look like any other panel. She'd need an extra panel than what she'd calculated.
"Yep. We
could
try and find specialty panels that are longer than 8' but they will be costly and probably not in stock, so forget about that. Three 4x8s should do us with a foot of waste on each. That tell you anything?"
She knew what he was suggesting, but she couldn't figure out what he was going to do to make it look nice. "We'll take the waste and run it across the top foot. But there'll be seams."
He nodded. "That's true. We'll have vertical and horizontal seams we'll want to cover. For the verticals we'll find some interesting molding. I got a book you can look through and pick whatever you think looks best. For the horizontal, we'll run picture molding, or whatever you want. And that's what we're going to use to hide the door. And the fact the place is out of square." He saw she didn't understand. "You'll see. First things first, we need the plywood. Add two more sheets for the other door, so pickup five in all. We'll figure out the inside paneling next week after we've got everything roughed in. I have a list over there. I called it in along with the hardware; you were in luck, the Sugatsune was available. I assumed a right inswing, full swing. You good with that?"
She had no idea what he was talking about. After he explained it, she thought about it. It wasn't what she had had in mind, but it was probably better his way.
"You can pick it up. It should fit in your SUV."
She plated her eggs, popped the toast and moved to the table, looking over his list. She smiled at how easy they were talking; it gave anyone listening the impression that she was just helping out on a little project of her own. The fact that she was juicing up and imagining him naked, the feeling of his hair in her fingers, none of that was even visible to Cos, let alone anyone else.
Did he feel the same way?
