My mother likes housework and when she decided to go back to work full time it was just natural for her to take up housecleaning. It gave her satisfaction, paid well, and she could see the results of her efforts straight away. All pluses as far as she was concerned. It didn't take her long to build a stable of regular customers and she developed a fairly steady routine.
Being her long-suffering daughter I had no choice but to learn how to keep house, and to do it well. The upside to this was that I had a skill that I could fall back on if my first choice of career fell through. That first choice, oddly enough, is Software Engineering. I picked up the bug at school and am now pursuing it at University.
One noticeable downside to being an expert housekeeper is that my mother considers me an available resource if something goes wrong with her work. For instance she normally sees her clients fortnightly, but every so often they'll have an emergency and want her to come in for a special clean. As she's generally fully booked, and can't be in two places at once, she tends to send me along to fill in for her on one of the bookings, generally whichever she deems will be easiest.
That's what had happened today. I'd only had classes for the morning so, ignoring my need to study as I could do that anytime, she sent me along to speak to Mr Brandt, apologise for her absence, and hop to with the cleaning. I got the Brandt house because he never made much of a mess and I could be in and out in an hour or less.
I checked her note-book for any idiosyncrasies that he might have, found none, and trotted around to get the job done so I could get back to studying.
I explained to Mr Brandt that I was filling in for my mother and he just nodded. If I wanted him for anything he'd be in his office, he told me and then just left me to get to it.
Not bad looking was my impression of Mr Brandt, as well as being polite and well-mannered. All-in-all he made a favourable impression on me. I'd say he was about eight or nine years older than me, ten at the most, as I doubted that he was over thirty. Still, I wasn't there to make goo-goo eyes at an attractive man. I hopped to and started cleaning.
My mother was right about Mr Brandt not making much of a mess. A light dusting and a quick spray and wipe covered most of the work. It wasn't long before I'd reached a point where I could vacuum the carpets, mop those rooms that had tile floors, and I'd be gone.
One nice thing about the Brandt house was the in-floor vacuuming system. There were three plug-in positions around the house and all I had to do was push one end of the hose home and I had a really powerful vacuum cleaner. When you can put the motor outside in the garage you can have a lot bigger motor than you have in a little tow-around vacuum.
The down-side to the plug-ins was that people tended to have them put in obscure places so as not to mess up their nice carpet. Fortunately my mother included these positions in her instructions. Inside the walk-in robe, behind the couch, behind the door in the office. The walk-in robe and the office were easy. Just bob down and jam the end of the hose in and away I went. Behind the couch? Not so easy.
The couch was big and heavy and I wasn't going to break my back moving it. I was standing on one foot, the other resting against the armrest of the couch, while I tried to reach behind it and push the hose into position. It's positions like this that cause me to wear tights when I go on these jobs. You never know when you're going to have to reach into some obscure corner and I had no intention flashing my panties at anyone who came wandering past.
Apparently that didn't worry some people. I'd just pushed the hose into the socket when a hand ran along my inside leg, all the way along it until it goosed me.
I gave a scream of fury, stood upright, and turned around to face my assailant all at the same time. That was the theory. The fact was that I screamed, tried to stand, totally lost my balance, and found myself sitting on the floor glaring up at Mr Brandt, who was laughing at me.
"Sorry, Miranda," he said, "but I just couldn't help myself. For a moment I forgot it was you and thought it was Margaret."
"My mother?" My voice was nearly a scream. "You intended to assault my mother?"
"Not assault, as such. More of a small joke. You have to admit you look like her."
"In my late thirties?" I demanded. "Are you blind or deliberately insulting."
"Whoa, calm down. I just meant that you're both slender and shapely. No aspersions were being cast."
"So you're saying, in a non-insulting way, that my mother is a tramp who'd welcome your sick attentions."
"No, I'm not saying that and you know it." He sounded slightly ruffled now. At least, he was no longer grinning like a chimp that'd pinched the last banana. "I'm just saying that it was a joke. Your mother would simple have laughed it off or slapped me and read me the riot act."
By now I was belatedly scrambling to my feet.
