Went to bed early but I think we went to sleep at the usual time.
We went shopping the next day knowing what the aim was. I approved most of her purchases. I raised objections to a couple of blouses where the buttons didn't seem to go up the front far enough and one skirt that had a split up the thigh. It didn't go far but it gave a hint, and I did not like the hint it was giving. She didn't argue, she just put them back. We had a very nice lunch in one of the local hotels. There are a couple of pairs of shoes with heels higher than I would have thought ideal for driving in, but she insisted she would take a spare pair of driving shoes like she did when we went to parties. There are a couple of pairs of tights that were ordinary run-of-the-mill stuff you bought in the supermarket. It was a good, but busy day.
Monday evening when she got in and said that Gerald and the girls approved of the outfit she had worn that day and if the others were similar all would be good. She had a few folders under her arm. She told me she was assisting one of the girls, Jessica, on the sale of five properties with a total price of just over £22 million and she wanted to read up on all the details, get to know the history, the location and the problems, that sort of thing. That seemed a sensible approach to me. I let her get on with it. I made dinner and played with the children in the back garden. I got them through the shower and put them to bed. I made sure she had coffee whenever she wanted it. After the children were in bed, I sat with her helping her go through the details. I helped her to make a list of interesting facts about the properties and local area, towards half ten I became a quizmaster and asked her questions. It was more fun than watching telly.
Tuesday night Lucy looked after the children and did dinner whilst I did a spot of work. Wednesday evening was a rerun of Monday, that was fine by me. I enjoyed helping her out as she was enjoying it. Thursday was a rerun of Tuesday, but I finished much earlier and we had an early night.
Friday evening Lucy came up with a funny request. She asked if we could drive around a couple of the properties she was selling in the local area. She had to work until 3:00 on Saturday, but Sunday was free and the weather looked good. Some of the properties were empty and she could get the keys, others we could just do a drive by of the local area. We could take a picnic and make it a day with the children. Again, it was a sensible idea, we were all included. I couldn't include her in my work, but Lucy was making this a family thing for her work. I liked that.
We had an excellent day on Sunday. I drove, Lucy took notes as we drove around, we even incorporated the children by playing I-Spy. It appears that they saw a lot more than we did. We were at an empty large house. We were sitting on the lawn having our picnic. The children were a bit tired after running around in the big hall playing aeroplanes and hearing their voices bounce off the walls. We didn't want them to go to sleep just yet. We wanted to wait till we got home. We played I-Spy. Lucy started with 'I spy with my little eye something beginning with T. I think she was keeping it simple, meaning tree. Katie came up with treehouse, Lucy pointed out that it would be TH, and there was no tree house. That was when Katie pointed up into a tree. And there it was! A full professional treehouse, not a couple of planks knocked together like we did as kids. We explored and Lucy took a lot of photographs, some had all of this in. I was particularly proud of the one with Jake on my shoulders, Katie hanging on to my leg and where Lucy had her arms around me.
As good as the day was, once the children were in bed the evening was better.
Things settled down over the next week or so, we adapted our lifestyle to both of our jobs. Her company had a sort of round robin where someone picked up all the children from school and took them into the crèche and Lucy would bring them home from there. One of us would cook whilst the other one played with the children. Sometimes I would do a spot of work, or we would watch telly and she would read up on some more properties. I would help with that. It was fun to see how the other half lived. We talked about it. We didn't feel jealous we had enough to keep us happy.
We settled into a comfortable routine.
A couple of weeks later Lucy came in on a Monday evening and told me that she had her first showing on Wednesday. It was the property with the Tree House. She had been shadowing Jessica on showings, but all of a sudden Jessica was not available for Wednesday. Lucy would have to do it on her own. She was so excited. She had told the girls in the office how I had helped her learn about the place and the local area a few weeks ago and what we did that weekend.
I watched her get dressed on Wednesday as I usually did, but what surprised me was she pulled out a pair of stockings and a suspender belt. The rest of her underwear was normal.
"Hey, what's with the stockings today?"
"The girls and Gerald say a flash of stocking top can help distract at the right time. I thought I would try it, it can't hurt, can it?"
I was not happy, so I changed my tone of voice. "Yes it can. It's your business, but I think that's a step too far. It's bad enough wearing tight blouses and short skirts but now you're flashing your stocking tops. It's going to send the wrong signals, the slightly too tight blouse and the just short enough skirt. I am not happy with your choice of how you dress, but I can mostly live with it, but flashing your stocking tops is too much. What signal does that send to the customer? I think you should stick to tights." She looked at me, I could see she was thinking.
"Sweetie, I understand your concerns, trust me nothing is going to happen." She was downplaying it.
"I don't want to hear about you selling properties on your back. There are a lot of stories out there of estate agents sleeping with their customers to get a sale. If you do that, I will divorce you and take the children." I walked off.
I had heard the rumours, but I didn't put any credence to them. I thought it was just an estate agent banter, now watching her get dressed, I was not so sure.
I knew her showing was at about one o'clock, I was anxious for her, but I didn't bother her. I did get a text message at about four saying she might be late and could I pick the children up from the office. That put a worry bead in my head. I asked her why she said she had some paperwork to finish.
I got to the office, it was the first time I'd been inside. It was obvious everybody knew who I was. They made me welcome. Lucy was there, she came to me and thanked me. It appears the customer had made an offer which might be accepted and she had some paperwork to finish. I was introduced to the rest of the girls there. There were three other saleswomen and two admin people. I noticed they all looked good, elegant. Lucy told me she wouldn't be long, possibly an hour. I took the children home and got them sorted and Lucy came in. It was nearly an hour and a half. But the smile on her face told me something.
"I've just had my first sale, I got a message just before we left the office, the offer had been accepted." I gave her a big hug and held onto her. In my mind I wondered what her portion on the commission of £6 million would be, as you would.
We went out on Saturday night to celebrate, it was my Mum and Dad's turn to look after the children. One thing stuck in my mind when she went out with me, she wore tights, not stockings. I'm afraid something will have to be said about that. Wearing stockings to work had become the norm the last few days. But we had a good evening and a better night with the children not being in the house.
Thursday as she got dressed I saw the underwear was new, not the usual underwear she'd been wearing, and after the stockings incident on Saturday I had to bring it up. "Sweetheart, that's really nice underwear for work."
"It doesn't seem right to wear stockings and frumpy underwear. I just thought I'd take it up a notch."
"Sweetheart I've got a problem with that, who's going to see your underwear. You're starting to worry me a little bit now."
She looked at me, I recognised the look. There was going to be an argument. "What, don't you trust me?"
"Yes I trust you. But look at this from a husband's perspective, you go to work with your boobs hanging out, short skirts, sexy underwear and stockings. I would like to point out to you didn't wear stockings for me on Saturday or dress half as sexy as you do for work. Am I being pushed into second place?" It was a bit of an exaggeration.
"Don't be stupid of course you're not. I have a feeling you don't trust me." And with that she stormed off. I was even less happy. We would need to sort this out tonight. That attitude was most unlike her. I think she's getting a bit uppity. That would have to stop, she probably didn't realise she was doing it. I'd seen that at work, fellow designers going off on one after they had had a big success not realising what they actually said.
I got a message saying not to cook dinner, we were going out. She had to apologise for this morning. She told me she had arranged a babysitter. Lucy told me she would be a little late with the children.
I was still quite angry at her, we very rarely had unresolved issues, but I was annoyed with the fact she just stormed out. That pissed me off. When she got home one of her work colleagues, Jessica, was with her. Jessica smiled at me and said. "I'm your babysitter, but please don't make it too late." They bought pizzas for the children. The kids loved pizza but I did not want it to become their staple diet. I wasn't so keen, but something was going on here.
Lucy took my hand and said. "Come on sweetheart it's only to the pub, I'm driving." With that she led me outside to her car. I started to ask what was happening and she said gently. "Shush, I'll explain later." We got to the pub and found ourselves a table in the corner and ordered dinner.
Reaching across the table she took my hand and looking at me she said quietly. "Sweetheart, I'm sorry about this morning, I told the girls about our little spat."
That put my hackles up, I snatched my hand back and angrily I said. "So now you're discussing our home life with your work friends, what will it be next, our sex life. And I bet they backed you up telling you what an inconsiderate husband I was, and it was all my fault. How much did you tell them?"
She looked at the table for a bit. I don't think she realised how angry I was with her. "I just told them you got upset with me because I wore better clothes to work than I did on a night out with you.
"No, they didn't. To put it mildly Jessica tore me a new one. Jessica told me off and I shouldn't let my work family dictate what my home family did. I didn't realise I was doing it. She said the two couldn't be separate, but you had to prioritise the home family, or both the home and work family will suffer. She told me I needed to apologise to you and that's when she volunteered to babysit. I'm sorry sweetheart. Even Gerald told me off. He told me the support his staff received from their family was very important to him and the business. A happy home family is a happy business family."
We finished dinner. We talked about things, her attitude this morning was one of them.
She didn't realise she had been like that. She admitted she had made a mistake and her work colleagues had pointed that out to her. I was coming to like these new people she worked with. They seemed reasonably sensible, so far. She told me she planned to carry on wearing stockings because she liked them, but she would save the sexy underwear for when we went out. She apologised for her attitude, and she admitted she got upset with me for picking her up on the underwear.
I accepted her apologies, and we walked out to the car hand in hand. The children were still up when we got home. We were not late. Jessica asked if we were sorted out. When Lucy started to answer, Jessica just said quietly. "What does David think?" That was nice. I told her I was happy and with her help we have resolved some issues that Lucy didn't realise she had.
We put the kids to bed and sat down in front of the telly, although it was a school night I did treat myself to another beer and a glass of wine for Lucy. I asked about Jessica, how she could offer to babysit at short notice. I had seen she hadn't got a wedding ring on. Lucy told me that she was divorced. She had two children, her parents only lived around the corner, and they were always more than happy to babysit. She had no idea about her ex-husband. It wasn't the sort of thing you brought up. She felt there was something between her and Gerald, but she wasn't sure what it was, she couldn't put her finger on it.
The next day when she got dressed, I saw that she was back to her normal underwear and stockings, but the rest was the same as usual. She would look like most of the other girls in the office. The Stepford wives' television programme flashed through my head. But whilst they all looked similar they were definitely not submissive. I pushed the thought away.
Later I noticed that she would wear sexy underwear if she was doing a showing. When I asked her about it, she told me it gave her confidence and again accused me of not trusting her. She started to get angry but then I think she realised Jessica's warning and backed down and apologised.