John and Maria lived in romantic and scenic wine country, a result of one of John's many business ventures. Maria knew as soon as she saw it that she had to have it. She convinced John to invest, and his keen business acumen soon found multiple angles for generating a profit. Only in the back of his mind was her happiness.
So when they purchased the property, with acres abound and the home with stories above, they couldn't do it themselves and decided to hire help. They brought in rotations of gardeners and groundskeepers, housekeepers and maids, doing everything that Maria didn't have to, since John believed a woman's place was in the bedroom. He bought her countless lingerie, and they seemed happy. But she was restless, and John tasked her with checking up on the help when he wasn't around.
"Good morning," came Maria's stern voice into the guesthouse. The man blinked his eyes at the light and saw the smiling face in the window. It was false, of course, lips pursed a little too tightly. The man was still in his underwear at 10 am, and she apparently needed him for a task. Or just an excuse to get his lazy ass up. What she didn't understand is that he worked far harder than she imagined, a father making sacrifices for his children who were thousands of miles away from him now. He sat up in bed, his muscled exterior showing decades of hard work.
"Morning," he replied as he looked around for a shirt.
She quickly cut to the chase. "Do you think I could take some pillows from you? I've got guests coming and need to make another bed."
The man had been given a room in the staff quarters, a large bed with many more sleeping and decorative pillows than he needed. He felt like quite a little princess, and happily agreed to give up more, grabbing a handful and reaching it out to her.
She took them through the large open window. "Thanks, I'll see you in a little bit," she added in a meaningful tone and whisked off, her bob bouncing off the nape of her neck as she turned.
But as soon as she was out of sight, her rhythm slowed. The jeans she had pulled on this morning were impossibly tight, and she couldn't move too quickly if she didn't want to hike them up every few steps. Women's styles had their pitfalls and the ability to express yourself clearly sure had its drawbacks. But maybe it would all be worth it.
She went to work in the kitchen, the traditional role that she had assumed for the sake of her wheeling and dealing husband who was always pacing about talking on his phone to someone very important a million miles away. He couldn't even be bothered to mess with attentive tasks like cooking for the time being. She made sure to invite him to eat with them, or else he wouldn't get fed and his pounds of fat would melt away. Maybe that wouldn't be so bad, but she did her civil duty and called him to breakfast.
"John, time to eat!"
He appeared in the doorway, his thinning blonde coif bouncing against his forehead where sweat was already beading. His wooden chair scraped against the floor as he pulled it back quickly and sat down to attack the meal.
"I've got important stuff to do day, so I need you to keep an eye on the help."
She nodded the corner of her mouth turning up in a suppressed all-knowing smile.
"I'll do my best."
John devoured his meal and flew out of the room, not even waiting for Maria to sit down. When she finally did, she went slowly, gazing out the window, her mind somewhere else as she picked away at her meal. Once she was finished she stood up to wash the few dishes, only breaking away from her thoughts when she heard a polite know at the kitchen door.
It was Clyde, dressed in beat up working jeans and a shirt that stretched tightly over his muscled upper body. He had a thumb through his belt loop and his hand on a thigh, in one of those awkward stances a model stands in to look natural.
"Whatchya got on the schedule?"
"Oh nice to see you finally! Just like me finish putting away the dishes and I can show you what you can do for me with those muscles."
She put the plates and cups in the cupboard, then bent over to slide the pots and pans into the lower cabinet.
"Do you need my help with any of that as well?" he asked as she began pulling out and trying to rearrange miscellaneous pots and pans.
"No, thank you very much."
So Clyde stayed in the doorway watching her jeans snugly tug her behind as she reworked the cookware in variety of different ways. After a few failed attempts she finally found something that worked and closed the cabinet door victoriously, standing up in a huff and twirling on Clyde, whose eyes immediately jumped up to her face.
With a hand she quickly brushed her hair back into position, then said, "Okay you can follow me. But watch your head."
She led him down into the basement wine cellar, dusty from years of underuse, and pointed out a few small crates of bottles.
"If you can, try to bring up a few of these. Last time it took a dozen or so of us to finish off 28 bottles," she laughed.
He didn't ask for details, though he imagined the stumbling debauchery.
