The Housekeeper Ch. 01

Cassie watched Sam complete the last two laps between the anchored rowboats. He treaded water for a moment, located the girls, and then swam the few strokes to the beach.

She and Wendy relaxed under the big umbrella, keeping tabs on the two younger ones and licking their ice creams. Their eyes followed Sam as he made his way across the golden sand towards them.

"Sammy beat me for the first time today," Wendy said. "Did you see it?"

"Lately, you've been letting him win. I didn't notice any difference."

Wendy and Sam had been swimming together since they were both thirteen; in competition with each other and with the school's crack swimming teams.

They were both State champions during their junior year.

Wendy was the better swimmer and could thrash Sam over the 100 metres; up till now.

"No, he beat me fair and square today. I put everything into it."

Her long tongue came out, and caressed the head of her ice-cream. "It's about time too."

"Godd Cass, look at him, when did he start to get those muscles?"

Cassie tracked her brother's progress up the beach to where they sat.

"Yeah," she sniggered, "check out the Speedos. "It's amazing how much he's grown since last summer."

"Not as big as that new boyfriend of yours Cass." Wendy swirled her tongue around the ice cream cone to pick up the melted drops.

"Yeah, well, like I said to you before Wendy, poor old Daryl is so big he doesn't get really stiff. That is not a problem with Sammy as you know."

They sat quietly watching Sam move up the beach and collect the two younger boys, making sand castles.

"Hmmm," said Wendy, between slow licks, "Sammy's hips are getting slimmer and mine are expanding."

"Just as well, you looked like a beanpole up until this year."

This summer, Wendy had been forced to change her style of swimsuit from her sleek racing lycra of the past years for one with a crossover bodice to support her new, burgeoning breasts.

"OK boys," Sam said as they came and sat beside Cass and Wendy, "up you get and hop under the beach shower and wash the salt water and sand off you, then head home please."

Sam bent and picked up his beach towel and smiled at his two favourite girls. "We have to go home early Cassie. Mum's coming down with the new Housekeeper, she wants us there by 11:30."

Cassie gave a groan. Wendy licked the last of her ice cream as she quietly reassessed her swimming partner and sometime pinch hitter date (whenever they were both short on someone to go out with).

"I'll leave you to it," she said. "Tell me about it later. I'm going home and have a shower." She put out her hand and Sam gently pulled her to her feet. Although he was over six feet tall, Wendy could still look him in the eye. They'd both sprung up since last summer and they'd both developed.

While the extra muscle tone and broadening chest had helped Sam in the water, Wendy thought her newfound C cups were a definite disadvantage for swimming.

Cassie had developed her cleavage two years earlier even though she was younger than her best friend. This year, Wendy had caught up with her.

Cassie put out her hand and her brother pulled her to her feet also. "What's this, Land of the Giants?" Cassie looked from her friend to her brother. Despite being a respectable 5'8" she was a good four or five inches shorter than Sam or Wendy. Wendy gave Cass a quick peck on the cheek, "Good luck you guys," and sauntered off down the beach towards her home.

Sam collected his two little brothers and Cassie and he headed up the beach towards their place.

Of the four children, Sam was the eldest. A few years earlier when he became a teenager, Sam's parents, both professionals, would leave him in charge of the house, while they'd go up to the city and stay in their Townhouse (which was more like a six bedroom mansion) in the Eastern Suburbs.

They began to travel there more often, and stay longer, as time went by. And it soon became apparent that Sam just couldn't cope with minding the children and also take himself to High School each day.

It was Ok for a couple of nights away but when they began to stay up town for a week or two at a time, they saw how Sam's schoolwork suffered badly.

They decided for the duration of their heavy City schedules to hire a housekeeper who would move in with the children and organise the home in their absence.

They'd had quite a few nannies or housekeepers as Sam was growing up; some as young as sixteen, some as old as sixty, and everything in between.

Most didn't stay long, for a variety of reasons.

Laura was in her early 30's, a tall austere woman with nut-brown hair pulled back severely into a tight bun. Her steel grey eyes were large and intelligent and didn't miss a thing and scrutinised the children as they gathered round waiting for their mother's announcement.

"Ok kids, settle down please," said their Mum "I have something to tell you. She turned towards Laura and said, "This is Laura." She paused and looked at her assembled brood.

"Laura will be taking over the house and will be acting in our...your father's and my, place whenever we are away." She said.

"I know you'll give Laura your utmost cooperation at all times. Especially you older ones." She looked directly at Cassie, who at eighteen was proving to be a handful and was forever pushing the boundaries.

Cassie had history with housekeepers, going back many years. Her dislike for any authority, even her own parents', was legend. And her attitude had not matured with age.

"Sam, I am counting on you," his mother added.

Sam nodded but silently surveyed the new housekeeper.

She was standing ramrod straight in her black power suit, which covered her from neck to mid-calf.

She wore flat heeled, no nonsense matron's shoes.

There was something strange about her. Was it the eyes with their permanent pissed-off look? He couldn't quite put his finger on it. But, he sighed to himself, time would tell.

His mother was still speaking.

"...so now, I'll ask Laura to say a few words, then you can all go."

Laura thanked Sam's mum and addressed the children.

"Hello Children, as your mother said, I'll be taking over the running of the household and making sure that you are properly cared for.

I shall be grateful for your assistance in ensuring that everything around here runs smoothly." She looked at Cassie and then at Sam.

"I expect you older children to set a good example. If you do what I ask, when I ask, which won't be that much, you can't help but get along with me. Thank you." She turned to Sam's mum, and stepped back.

"Thank you Laura," his mother said.

"Ok Kids, away you go. Get your homework done before you go out to play."

She and Laura went back upstairs to conclude their business. His mum was due to return uptown within an hour.

"WHAAAT the FUCK was THAT?" Cassie asked Sam as she watched Laura and her mother climb the stairs. "Did you see how she was dressed? And what about the faces she pulls. I bet she sucked lemons before she made her, 'can't HELP but get along with me' speech. Holy shit I get bad vibes from that one."

Sam laughed. "You get bad vibes from all the housekeepers Cass. I daresay we won't have much to do with her," he said. "We can virtually look after ourselves. She's mainly here for the little kids; and keep the house in order.

"AND," he added, giving his sister a stern eye, "I am grateful for not having to do it all myself anymore."

Years before when Sam had first discovered masturbation, it took him over with a vengeance.

One night, in the downstairs shower when he was engrossed in a particularly strong orgasm, he noticed a blinding flash and looked up, mid stroke, to be greeted by Cassie and the new girl from his class in school, standing there with his 35mm camera.

The girl was Wendy. She stood there in awe and shock, having been invited by her new friend, Cassie, to join in and play a joke on Cassie's big brother.

"You frightened six month's growth out of me," Wendy laughed, one Saturday night, years later when she and Sam had become more than just good friends.

"I thought you were having a Grand Mal seizure...until I saw what you had in your hand."

Cassie had promised to show the photos to everyone at school, but decided not to, when he promised faithfully to do her household chores for six months.

The six months stretched into a year; then two.

And although over the last couple of years, the photos really didn't have any power anymore...masturbation was no big deal with anyone in his class, Sam had continued doing most of Cassie's share of housework just out of years of habit.

Admittedly, Cassie returned favours in other ways and was fiercely loyal to her big brother. But the day Cassie helped with the housework, Sam would probably drop dead with shock.

This new housekeeper looked like she'd take no shit from anyone; poor Cassie.

"If she keeps out of my way, we'll get along fine" said Cassie "I'm going down to Wendy's house. Seeya."

Sam's parents had made a truly unique deal this time. They retained Laura as a live-in housekeeper and organised for her husband to come down every second or third week-end and do gardening.

They turned out to be a strange couple. Sam had seen other strange housekeepers over the years he was growing up. Some were overbearing from 'day 1,' like the woman who told young Fred that he had done something wrong and he had to be punished.

Fred, who was ten or eleven at the time, was not used to people coming into his home and, after being there only two days, thinking that they had the right to punish him with a strap, for 'being naughty.'

The housekeeper hit Fred once with the belt before he turned on her and wrenched it from her hand and whacked her with it, hard, across her behind.

She fled in terror, locked herself in her room and promptly resigned the next day.

Sam's parents must have taken that (and a few similar incidents), into account when they chose Laura.

Laura showed herself to be much tougher than her predecessor and a little overzealous with her religion, and punctuated every new pronouncement she'd make with the relevant passage from the Bible.

Her favourite saying was, "You'll go straight to hell for that..." and she would use it for the slightest infringement of her rules.

When her husband came down the next weekend, Sam could see from where she was getting it.

Jorge was a much older man probably pushing fifty, and was as sanctimonious as any lay preacher Sam had ever seen.

If Laura was tough, her husband was much tougher and handed out gratuitous advice to anyone and everyone as if he was lord and master of the house.

Cassie cornered Sam one Saturday evening when Jorge was down and he'd forbidden her to go out with Wendy to the Movies.

"What manner of shit is this, Sam?" she yelled, but not in earshot of Jorge or Laura.

"Who are these people, and who gave them the right to act like little Hitlers and ban us from going out?"

Sam knew better than to answer Cassie's rhetorical questions.

Cassie turned on her heel and marched off to her room grumbling out loud, "If I want to go out, I'll go out."

Any confrontation between Jorge and Cassie was postponed only because Wendy came over and the two of them went to Cassie's room to chill out, listen to music and plot against the 'old prick' trying to control her movements.

"...And in my own fucking house," she was telling Wendy as she shut her door and bolted it.

Laura and Jorge had originally left the city, because, they said, it was a "den of Iniquity."

They'd managed to rake together a deposit for a small farm upcountry and firmly believed that the little farm would be their salvation.

They said that up there they felt the purity of the Land and so were closer to The Lord.

However, they were both from the city and life on the farm proved to be a steep learning curve.

So, their "little haven," wasn't yet a viable concern and they were forced to consider outside employment just to meet the farm's repayments.

Back in the city, Laura had been a housekeeper in the Compound where Jorge was an Elder.

They missed their 'double wage' almost as soon as they moved to the country, and found, to their consternation, that there was little or no outside work to supplement their income in the district around their new found home.

They'd been forced to put their project on hold and seek work closer to the city.

When they saw the ad in the newspaper for live-in housekeeper, they applied immediately and managed a deal with Sam's parents where Laura would mind the children and look after the house while her husband would come down some weekends and do the gardening and general yard maintenance.

Although Sam had turned nineteen and Cassie, the next in line, was eighteen, Laura counted them as two of the children and it was crystal clear in her mind that Sam and his sister were in urgent need of strict discipline; just like the rest of the brood.

She had a small apartment, which was tacked on, behind the garage, just across the lawn from Sam's room. It was a self-contained apartment with its own water, cooking gear, fridge, toilet etc.

Jorge would spend the weekend doing the gardening, ordering everyone around like he owned the place and never failing to point out their moral weaknesses and how they'd rot in hell if they didn't pull their socks up. The couple would go to church early Sunday and then on Sunday afternoon, he would leave for their upcountry farm and they wouldn't see him for another fortnight.

"Good riddance," said Cassie, each and every time he left to go home.

It was obvious from the outset that Laura disapproved of the household's easygoing lifestyle and on more than one occasion tried to take the children to church on Sunday morning.

Lance had been cornered a few times because he wasn't quick enough to 'go to ground' early Sunday and stay hidden until Laura had left for Church.

Sam used to hide in the dense scrub, leading the back way, down to the beach.

Laura would need to be a mountain goat to find Sam on Sunday Mornings.

Around this time Sam and Cassie, had moved into their new rooms downstairs.

The house was split-level. The upstairs section was weatherboard and on stumps and stood about six feet off the ground. The bottom section was on a long concrete slab and contained Sam and Cassie's bedrooms back to back with the laundry and downstairs shower up Cassie's end. Along the side of their bedrooms a long unused room ran the full length of the slab.

One of Cassie's bedroom doors went into the Laundry area and from there, outside.

The other door, permanently locked, interconnected Sam's room.

The other end of his room had a door to the outside yard. He could see Laura's apartment across the lawn from there.

The interconnecting door to the long room afforded Sam a shortcut to the shower, But unless it was cold or raining, Sam still preferred to go through his outside door and walk around the yard to the shower.

There was less chance of running into Laura.

Laura used the long room for doing her the sorting of the washing and for doing her ironing, far from the hustle and bustle of upstairs.

From the outset Laura took a very dim view of Sam's routine of racing to the shower, through the long room clad only in his dressing gown and carrying his pajamas and a towel.

Her idea, which she wasn't backward in forcibly pointing out, was that one should be fully dressed when one went to and from the shower.

Sam took Laura very seriously and avoided her whenever he could.

His father and mother listened to everything she reported to them. A word from Laura and his father came down severely on the offender.

Her husband too was not averse to reporting any slight misdeed to Sam's parents either.

"This is like living in Prison," Cassie complained and did everything to show Laura the distain she held for her.

"What did you say, young lady?" Laura would yell.

Cassie would usually say something unintelligible and walk off. She'd give Laura the middle finger when she thought she wasn't looking.

"You are on the slippery slope to hell, my girl."

"Yeah? Said Cass, under her breath, "Eat shit and die; bitch."

"What did you just say, young lady?"

And around they would go again.

Neither of them tired of it as far as Sam could see. One day was like the next, and Cassie was constantly called to the phone to hear her father admonish her. "Yes Dad, I am sorry."

"No Dad I won't do it again."

"Yes Dad, I'll apologise as soon as I get off the phone."

The rift between the two women grew wider when things started to go missing from Cassie's room.

Cassie's two vibrators disappeared from their hiding place. Cass came home from school one day and she and Wendy were messing around in Cassie's bedroom. Sam was in his own room next door when he heard Cassie let out a scream of rage and within seconds, she had marched around to confront him, with Wendy in tow. She blamed Sam for stealing her vibrators and demanded he give them back or she'd trash his room until she found where he hid them.

"I don't have them." He said. "You've misplaced them. Go take another look. I have three assignments to finish."

"Look under his bed Wendy, I'll take the drawers and wardrobe."

Ten minutes later, Wendy admitted defeat. They're not here, Cass." Sam was at his desk, doing homework. He'd seen it all before and knew it was a waste of time stopping Cassie once she made up her mind to do something.

"Hope you're going to clean up your mess when you finish." He knew she wouldn't.

Cassie looked directly at him as she said, "wherever he's hiding his condoms and that stupid plastic cunt he likes to fuck late at night, it's there that we'll find the vibies."

Wendy laughed. "You look a real fuckwit with that thing Sammy." She thrust her hips forward much like Sam did whenever he used it." She grunted like a pig while pushing her imaginary cock into the device, much like they'd watched Sam do, late one night when they were caught in his room and had to hide, waiting for him to go to sleep .

"Ohh baby," moaned Wendy, still thrusting away in parody of Sam.

"Uhh uhhh oh yesssoh you are so hot. I'm coming I'm uhhh cominggg"

She straightened up and glanced at Sam. "How am I doing lover boy, is that close??"

"Hahaha" Cassie was cracking up with Wendy's caricature of Sam coming inside the tube.

"Just like him, Wendy," she said, "even down to the shaky legs. Hahahaha."

Sam sneered at Wendy, "ho ho ho , you haven't much to do if you have to watch me wank for excitement."

Sam went on the attack with a laugh. "What about you two and those friggin' power tools you use in there?" He pointed in the direction of the locked door to Cassie's bedroom, "they just about shake the whole house... Sam trailed off, his mind suddenly elsewhere. Something was bothering him.

"Hey, did you say my Pink Lady is not in there?"

"You know it's not." Snapped his sister "You've hidden it so we can't pay you back for taking our..." "Where are our toys Sam??" Wendy broke in. "Fun's over. When Cass gets horny, she gets really really nasty."

"Yeah, you better give them back Sam," said Cassie. She and Wendy were a double-act and talked in tandem, as if they read each other's thoughts. "It's no joke. We need them; now." She put out her hand. "Give."

Sam shot past her and looked in the cupboard where his private gear was stashed.

"My books; they're gone" said Sam. "Have you got them Cass?"

"No," she said... "last time I saw them they were in a box down there.."

The box was missing.

"Awww shit, what is going on?" Sam looked stunned.

Cassie emitted a low growl. "Surely that religious nutter, dressed like a brick shithouse, wouldn't go through our personal stuff?"