My name is Mandy - actually Amanda, but I hated that and my family had always called me Mandy, so I preferred to just go by that. I am 27 and 5'6" and 125 pounds, with a nice shape, or so I've been told, and a cute face. I have light brown hair in a short layered bob. I have b-cup breasts and a firm body, well earned from at least three hours a week in the gym.
I'm a computer contract worker, often working remotely, and sometimes on site with the client. That isn't bad when the client is local, but more of a problem when the client is in another city. I have a little dog, Max who absolutely dotes on me. When I work remotely from home, he loves it, when I'm at a local client site, he copes, but it's hard on him when I have to travel and work out of town.
I've used kennels to take care of him, and he really hates that. I've tried to find a good dog sitter to take care of him in my home, but it is hard to find someone truly reliable. So one afternoon, I'm walking Max and ahead of us I see a young women who has three dogs on leashes. The smallest is twice the size of Max and the biggest easily three times his size.
She is stopped and seems to be trying to untangle leashes. In all likelihood the dogs moved back and forth and got the leashes tangled between them. She is about my height but quite slender and seems to be essentially female nerd, but cute. She has brown hair in kind of a tangled curly mess, wears glasses and is in jeans and a tee shirt.
She doesn't have a large chest, perhaps a or b cup and a small bottom. She has a cute face and when she sees me she has a sweet smile. I had kind of hung back, because you can never tell how dogs will react when they meet other dogs or strange people. Some are good, but others can be defensive or even aggressive. I didn't want to get in the middle of a dog fight.
"What a cute little dog you have."
"You look like you have your hands full with three of them."
"They're a little rambunctious, but I didn't want to walk each one separately."
"You must love dogs to have three of them."
"They aren't mine. I do dog walking and dog sitting professionally."
"You do? I've been looking for a good person to look after Max, when I'm away."
"Are you out of town often?"
"I have to spend about one week a month on the road, and it's hard on Max."
"Let's talk and see what we can work out. My name's Lori."
Lori gave me her phone number and I put it in my phone along with her name. She said she had some cards, but had her hands full with the three dogs. I texted her my address and she said she would come by later to meet Max and talk about what she could do and what her rates were. She was a college student, 22 years old and took care of dogs to help pay for college.
We said our goodbyes and I walked Max and went back home. About thirty minutes later my doorbell rang and it was Lori coming by to talk. She was a finance major in her last year of college. She said she would love to get her Master's but wasn't sure if she could afford it. She had a partial scholarship and used dog walking and sitting to help cover her other expenses.
We sat on the sofa and talked and before long Max was sitting in her lap and she was scratching his tummy. I'd never seen Max take to a person as he seemed to be taking to Lori. They say dogs are an excellent judge of people. I don't know of that is really true, but in this case, I decided to follow Max's judgment and hire Lori.
She gave me her rates, which were quite reasonable. I was scheduled to spend the next week working at a customer site locally, but I could use Lori to come by during the day to walk Max. That would ensure that there were no accidents and would mean he wouldn't have been alone for ten hours or more with no one around.
I was scheduled to be out of town at a customer site in a couple of weeks, so it gave me a chance to test Lori out before that happened. I gave Lori a key to my house along with a special code for the alarm system. I could disable that code if necessary and could track the times she used that code to make sure she was showing up when and only when she should, along with knowing how long she was there.
I didn't have much worth stealing in my house, but still didn't want to simply trust someone I'd only briefly met, even if Max did seem to like her. Truth be told, I was beginning to like her. Look, I do like men, but I mostly like women, and for some reason I found I was attracted to Lori. I tend to be more attracted to decidedly femme women, which Lori was not.
At any rate, what I really needed was a reliable dog sitter, and not a lover. So whether or not I was attracted to Lori was pretty irrelevant, apart from the fact that I had no idea whether she was into women. Did I want to make moves on this woman and upset her and lose my dog sitter? Absolutely not. So while I might think she was cute, I tempered that interest.
I had my home security system set up to ping me when it was turned off or on, and about the time I expected Lori, it let me know. I wondered how long she would visit with him, since I wouldn't be back until that evening. She seemed to stay for about half an hour, which was easily enough time to walk him and make him feel that he wasn't all alone.
I wondered what the house would be like when I returned home, but everything was fine. I'd told her that she was welcome to something to drink and it looked like she'd gotten a soda from the fridge. Now I had a two story place and had the system set up to let me know if she went upstairs, but she didn't. All that week everything seemed to be fine and I asked her to continue the following week, even though I was working from home.
Sure, I could have taken a break from my work to walk Max, but I decided to keep having Lori come by to do that. She came by around midday and I waited until she arrived to take a lunch break and offered her some lunch, as well. At first she was a little hesitant, but she admitted to not having had lunch so she accepted my offer.
I had some deli meats and made us each sandwiches, saving a few bites of meat for Max as a little reward. He is a terrible beggar and I knew if we had sandwiches, he'd want some as well. Beyond what I gave him, Lori gave him a few nibbles as well. If Max seemed to like her before, then he really liked her when she gave him nibbles of lunch meat.
For the next two weeks I worked from home, Lori and I had lunch together every day. I made soup one day, got pizza another day, and Chinese still another. I learned more about Lori and her life, though she never seemed to talk about relationships. I wondered about that and dropped little hints that could lead into a discussion of relationships, but she never bit.
At that point, I didn't know if she liked women, men, both, or neither. On the other hand, I heard all about her classes and how they were going. I found that she was from a small town about 150 miles away. She had an older sister, who had graduated college and was working on the west coast, and a younger brother who was a high school senior.
To be fair, I didn't talk about any of my relationships, not that there had been much to talk about for a while. If I talked about relationships with women, that might scare her off if she was decidedly straight. But if I talked about relationships with men that might discourage her is she had any interest in women. While I was attracted to her, I really wasn't ready to make any moves at all.
After two weeks of working from home, I was going to be out of town, and Max was quite unused to being by himself overnight. I asked Lori to spend the night at my place for Max's sake and told her I'd leave food which she could enjoy in my absence. I had a guest bedroom which she was welcome to, and between her coming by during the day and spending the night that should keep Max happy.
"I know you have roommates where you currently live."
"I'm sharing a place with two other women."
"I know a big house can seem lonely all by yourself, so if you want to have a person stay with you, I don't mind."
"My two roommates are a bit of a challenge. Being by myself for a few days might be a nice break."
"I'd ask that you not throw any parties at my house while I'm gone."
"I'm not much of a party girl, so I can't imagine I'd even consider that."
"I'll have food and drink, including sodas and wine. You're welcome to help yourself."
"I have the occasional glass of wine, but don't drink all that much."
"Still, you can treat this as your home for the week I'm gone, within reason."
"I'm fairly clean and neat, and won't abuse your hospitality."
So, Lori was clean, neat, sweet, nerdy, and smart, besides the fact that Max really liked her and she seemed to like him. What could possibly be better? Well, the only thing better would be if she liked women and was partial to me, but I didn't really want to delve into that at all. In some ways, perhaps I was a little afraid, which was a puzzle in itself.
