Part One:
It had been one of those days. You know the type, when everything you
try to do seems to go wrong somehow. I suppose I should tell you a
little about myself, so you know what I’m talking about.
My name is Melissa. I am twenty six years old and I live in a small
coastal town just outside Salem, Oregon. Last year, I had finally
realized my dream of opening my own bed and breakfast inn. It’s called
Magnolia House. I am very proud of what I have done with the place.
When I first bought the property, it was a run down, ramshackle old
Victorian. At one time, it had been the home of a shipping magnate and
his large family -- and I do mean large. I swear, this man took to
heart the passage in the bible ‘be fruitful and multiply’. I felt sorry
for his wife, giving birth to sixteen children. The place had four
floors, numerous bedrooms, communal bathrooms on each floor and several
large common rooms on the first floor. The servant’s quarters on the
first floor had been renovated into my own private rooms, but the rest
of the house was open to the guests, except the kitchen.
I know what you’re thinking. How does a single, twenty-six year old
woman afford a venture such as this? It’s simple really. When my father
died, I found out that I had been named as his beneficiary in his
company life insurance policy. You see, my father was an oil worker in
Inuit, Alaska. He and my mother had divorced (badly) and he had no
other children. The money from the policy was enough for me to buy this
place, renovate it and be able to survive, if just barely, without
profits for almost a year. That gave me the cushion I needed to be able
to guarantee that I kept this place. My mother and I spoke briefly at
my father’s funeral, but we really didn’t have too much to say to
eachother. Each of us knew how the other felt and everything that
needed to be said had already been said long before that. We didn’t
really care for eachother, and we were fine with that. I know what
people say about the bond between a mother and a daughter, but we had
never really developed that bond. We tolerated eachother well enough,
but that was about it. Anyway, after the funeral, I came back to Salem,
did a little soul searching and realized what I wanted to do. One year
later, here I am. A successful entrepeneur with a thriving business
that I love.
Well, I had started by telling you about my day today. As I said, it was
a day where everything went wrong. It started with a power outage.
Normally, that would have been a disaster, but since I had closed the
inn for a week in preparation of the Fourth of July crunch, it wasn’t
as bad as it could be. The storm last night had knocked out power, so I
occupied myself by doing what cleaning I could that didn’t require
electricity. I called the electric company to find out when power would
be restored and found out that some lines had been knocked down and it
would be a while before they could send someone out. Oh well. I decided
to break for something to eat and sat down to a bowl of cereal. That’s
when I found out my milk had gone sour. The hard way. Grimacing, I
gulped down my juice to get rid of the taste of the milk and dumped the
bowl in the sink. I went upstairs to gather the linens for when I could
wash them and found one of the upstairs rooms had been completely
trashed. I had called their room the night before to ask them to keep
the shouting down and they did as I asked. Apparently I had called too
late. When they had departed this morning --without speaking to
eachother-- they had said nothing about the damage. I cleaned up the
mess, threw out everything that was broken and tallied up an estimate
of the damages. Good thing they had paid by credit card. I simply added
the cost of the damages to their bill. I listed the expense as damages
to the credit card company so that there wouldn’t be any dispute,
called the credit card company, and set about the rest of my task. As I
was pulling the soiled linens downstairs, I slipped on a marble that
some wonderful little child had decided to leave there and fell down
the flight of stairs to the next level. The laundry I was carrying
padded my fall, so I didn’t get too hurt, but I was banged up enough to
feel it. Anyway, I’m sure by now you get the point.
It wasn’t until later that afternoon that the repair man finally showed
up. Although, to my surprise, it wasn’t a man. It was a repair woman. A
very attractive one at that. She was, I would guess, around five foot
nine or ten, with longish light brown hair gathered back in a braid,
loose tendrils framing her slender face. She had the kind of tight,
athletic body and slightly butch attitude that I have always found very appealing.
You know the type, very obviously a woman, but with some of
the mannerisms of a man. My last girlfriend was a mechanic in town and
always managed to turn me on. Of course, it doesn’t hurt that I have a
thing for women in uniforms, any uniforms.
In case you hadn’t guessed by now, I’m a lesbian and -- surprise,
surprise -- that’s why my mother and I aren’t on friendly terms. I came
to the realization of my sexual preferences very early. When other
girls were playing post office with the boys, I wanted to play with the
girls. Men just hold no interest for me. Don’t get me wrong, I have
nothing against men. As a matter of fact, my closest friend is a man.
David is a florist in town, and yes, he’s gay too. I guess it kind of
figures, huh?
When I saw this very attractive woman climb out of her truck, I decided
to take a lunch break and watch the afternoon show out my window. A
little ogling doesn’t cause any harm, right? As I munched on some
leftover pasta salad and a roll, I watched her step into some sort of
harness and slowly work her way up the pole. I was fascinated as I
watched her move. She had a grace about her that was very intriguing.
She seemed perfectly at home at the top of the pole with her tool belt
slung low on her hips. I watched as she fiddled with the box and then
quickly made her way down the pole. She started to walk toward the
house and I perked up, realizing that I was about to meet this very
interesting woman. I raised my hand to wipe the hair from my eyes and
got a very strong whiff of lemons. Oh wonderful, I thought to myself.
Here I am, hoping to make a good impression, and I reek of furniture
polish. Oh well. Just hope she likes the smell of lemons, I thought,
and giggled.
I heard the knock at the door and yelled for her to come in. I smiled
when she saw me and introduced myself. She seemed a little distracted
for a moment.
“Hi,” she said. “I’m Amanda. I’m with the electric company. I just
checked out the lines and they’re fine. I think there might be a
problem with your circuit breakers. Where’s your box?”
Being the dirty minded woman I am, I immediately read the entendre in
her question. I tried not to grin as I told her it was in the basement.
Leading the way, I walked with her to the basement and stood with her
as she checked out all the myriad switches, switching them back and
forth. “Miss --”
“Melissa,” I interrupted.
“What?”
“My name. It’s Melissa.”
She smiled, an intimate smile that went beyond professionalism. “That’s
a pretty name, it suits you.”
I felt my face begin to flush with a pleasant warmth. “Thank you.”
“Melissa, I need to check out all the rooms to make sure there aren’t
any interruptions in the power flow. How many are there in this place?”
I told her and she whistled, low and long. “That’s, uh, quite a lot.”
I agreed and gestured for her to precede me up the stairs. As we walked
up, I got a very nice view of her derriere, encased very nicely in her
uniform pants. As we reached the top of the stairs, she turned suddenly
and caught me staring. Not knowing what to expect, I started to
apologize, but stopped when she smiled down at me. I returned the
smile, and kept smiling when she turned, very slowly and deliberately,
and began to climb the stairs to the kitchen. Once in the sunny room, I
asked her where she wanted to start.
“Well,” she said softly, looking me directly in the eye. “I like to
start at the top and work my way down. I like to be thorough.” She let
the statement hang in the air as she walked through the rooms to the
staircase. I felt a dampness at the juncture of my legs and decided to
go with the feeling. At the very least, I’d get to tease myself a
little and have plenty of material for my fantasies.
We chatted casually as we walked from room to room, watching eachother
and tossing the sexual innuendo back and forth. It was pretty obvious
to me by now that the attraction was going both ways and that this
could lead to something considerably more than just a routine job.
Finally, we had worked our way back down to the first floor, and made
our way to the back of the house. To my apartment. By this time, we had
actually learned quite a bit about eachother. I learned that she played
softball for the company team, and had a game coming up on Saturday.
She asked if I wanted to come watch her play and, of course, I
accepted. Not just for the pleasure of watching her in action, although
that in itself was worth the trip. I happened to love softball, and
played myself, although usually only at informal gatherings, like
neighborhood picnics and such. She was a third baseman, I was a
catcher. We both smiled. We had a lot in common. I thought to myself,
this looks very promising.
She had checked out all the rooms, and discovered the problem in short
order. We discussed it over a couple of glasses of iced tea in the
kitchen --her lounging on the counter and me sitting on it. We were
very close to eachother and I could feel the heat emanating from her. I
watched the sweat bead on her skin for a moment before handing her a
cloth to wipe her face with. Even though I had all the windows and both
screen doors open to let in the summer breeze, the heat was still
enough to be slightly uncomfortable. I took the cloth from her and
wiped my own face, and then the back of my neck and the top of my
breasts before dropping the cloth beside me on the counter. I looked
back to find that she had been watching me. I swear, I could almost
feel it. It was like a caress, the way her eyes traveled over me. By
the time she had moved her gaze back to my face, my breath was choppy
and my heart felt like it was beating out of my chest. She locked her
eyes on mine and held them for a moment before speaking.
“You look good when you sweat. That’s impressive. Most people just look
like they’ve been rained on. You have this... I don’t know, it’s almost
like a glow.”
“Thank you.” I could hear a tremor in my voice, but I didn’t really
care.
She held my gaze with hers for a moment more, then looked away. I
watched as she took a deep, unsteady breath. I knew what she was
feeling. A moment later, she began telling me that some of my wires had
been fused due to the extra current that ran through them, and that she
would have to come back another day to fix it. She told me that it was
about a two or three day job and gave me a written estimate. I gladly
accepted, of course. She asked if I didn’t want to get a second
opinion, perhaps from an independent electrician. They might be able to
give me a better fee. I told her there was no need.
“Why not?” she asked.
“I trust you,” I told her.
She smiled.
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