Sorting Out The Smiths Ch. 02

"It's a waste of our money," cried Lianne. "How much will she charge us?"

"Actually, Mrs Smith, our company's rule is that if I'm not completely satisfied that my work has been a success, I don't charge you a penny," replied Elizabeth quietly. She seemed to be used to these objections on a daily basis. "Of course, that is very rarely the case."

"I think we should give it a shot, Mom," said Jack enthusiastically. "What's the worst it can do? Who knows where our minds are at?" Lianne scowled at him; she knew very well where his mind was right at this moment. It was embedded in those green eyes, that blonde hair. Fine, if that was how they wanted it, let them fool themselves. "Do what you want," she muttered, picking up her knife and fork. "I don't care."

"Then I guess it's settled," Jack said, taking his seat at the table and not taking his eyes off of the blonde bombshell to his left.

Lewis looked worriedly at his wife. Now he felt foolish, stupid even. He should have told her, should have swallowed his pride, or at the very least talked to her about it first before dialling any numbers. But he also felt a sense of shame and anger at her reaction. This was a nice thing he'd done, he figured. He was trying to help her, trying to help them. He sat back down and waited for Wanda, who had brought in a rather extravagant looking plate of "scraps" for their guest, to leave.

"So, Miss Callaghan," he said after a moment of uncomfortable silence, "what happens now?"

"First of all," she replied, spearing a chunk of meat with her fork, "this isn't any ordinary therapy, as you mistakenly called it, Mrs Smith. There will be no couches, no hourly sessions, no pads of paper when I'm talking to you. I want you to treat me as an ordinary member of the family. I'll wander around during the day, I'll observe, I'll chat. Its here I'll be able to root out the problems one by one. It may take a while to reach them, but I'll find them eventually, don't you worry.

"Secondly, there are a couple of ground rules I would like to set before we truly begin. You must call me Elizabeth, and I must call you by your first names too. That way we have immediately destroyed some boundaries. The other thing is that I want you to be able to talk to me about anything -- and I mean, anything -- but only when you feel ready. I will not force you into conversations, as say a therapist would do. I want it to come very naturally and truthfully."

"I think we can abide by those rules, Elizabeth," replied Lewis. "Can't we?"

Jack nodded vigorously. Lianne scowled at her husband. She could tell he'd noticed too that their visitor was not exactly unattractive. Every now and again his eyes would dart quickly over her body, as if trying to take sneaky peeks of a birthday present without opening the whole package.

She got up. "I'm going to bed," she declared flatly. "It was nice to meet you...Elizabeth."

Lewis looked worriedly at her plate. "Honey, you haven't even touched your dinner."

"I'm not hungry," she said quietly as she walked out of the dining room. There was a moment before, somewhere upstairs, a door slammed.

Lewis smiled weakly. "Welcome to our home," he said.

*****

The rest of the meal was eaten with snippets of awkward conversation. Lewis had half his mind on worrying about his wife, Jack had half his mind on wondering what Elizabeth looked like naked.

Elizabeth revealed a little more about her personal life to the brief questions that were asked of her. Her parents had been divorced when she was twelve after a long suffering marriage, and it had always been her regret that there had never been somebody to help them during those troubling times. She and her father had moved to Sechs City whilst her mother moved to the other side of the country, to New York City. She was now 27 years old and had been a member of Family Care for about five years, rising up the ranks to become one of their most dedicated employees.

When the meal was finished, she excused herself from the dinner table. "I'm very tired and we have a long few days ahead of us," she explained.

"Of course," said Lewis understandingly. "I'll get Wanda to show you to your room."

But Elizabeth held up a hand. "I'm grateful, Lewis. But I would prefer it to find it on my own. Is that a problem?"

Lewis sat back down in his chair. "Not at all," he replied. "Have a good sleep."

When she had left, Jack immediately leaned over to his father. "Wow, Dad, you sure know how to pick the help!"

Lewis glowered at his son. "Enough of that, you. That's exactly what she's here for - to help us, understand?"

"Jeez, Dad, I was just saying..."

"Yeah, well, don't. And why didn't you come home straight away this afternoon? You're grounded, remember?"

"Dad, I'm eighteen years old..."

"Still not too old to be grounded. I'm tempted to extend the punishment too, after what I saw in your bedroom last night."

For the first time, Jack looked a little nervous. "What did you see?" he asked hesitantly.

"I think you know," replied Lewis, hoping that this would cover up anything suspicious about what he'd just said.

"Look, dad, like I said, I'm eighteen..."

"That is no excuse!"

*****

Standing just by the side of the doorway, listening to the conversation as it turned into a sharp argument, Elizabeth smiled. Already she knew how to deal with this family. It was actually very obvious. It was just in the execution of the therapy that needed the planning.

She made her way up the grand staircase towards the bedrooms. As she did she gave herself a brief opportunity to view the obvious wealth of the house. It wasn't bad at all. She'd worked in some real dumps before, but this was definitely one of the perks of this particular job. In fact she was half tempted to take longer than she knew was necessary with the Smiths just to spend a couple more nights here, but she knew she could get into a lot of trouble by doing something like that.

The first door was open and she could guess automatically that this was her room. It was nice -- large, spacious, everything looked clean and tidy. It made her feel rather posh. She left her case by the door and went on further down the landing.

Jack's room was obvious to tell whose it was. Pictures of gorgeous looking female singers lined the wall, some more torn than others. She ticked off the box of tissues and, as she craned under the bed, the three or four conspicuous looking magazines that she had already assumed would be there.

She went further on, finding herself at what could only be the master bedroom. Getting on her knees as quietly as she could, Elizabeth peered through the large keyhole of the wooden door. She could make out the large bed, a chair to the side of it with a man's dressing gown on it, and a side lamp that was the only light in the room.

Then there was a flash of flesh -- a naked thigh, smooth and silky -- before this vanished, only for Lianne's full naked body to appear at the end of the room by the window with the drawn curtains. She had her back to the door and Elizabeth, showing off her long black hair as it flowed down her back, her immaculate rear, and the rest of those legs that had Elizabeth had been teased with seconds before.

The blonde got up off the floor and nodded to herself. Again, it was obvious what was going on in this family. It was time to start the healing.

*****

Jack was heading up the stairs to bed after his usual evening work out in the family's small gym when he saw it: a plain white handkerchief, lying there at the top of the stairs. Curious he picked it up. It looked and felt clean. Attentively he sniffed it, then grinned enormously. Yes, it was hers; it smelled heavily of her perfume, a sweet honey smell.

For a moment he considered taking it back into his own room, but he decided against that. After all, if she were to find it missing and it were found in his room how would he explain it? Wanda never came into his room so he couldn't very well blame her, and that would have been a horrid thing to do anyway.

Clearing his throat, Jack walked up to the door of the guest room and knocked three steady times. There was a pause and then, just when he thought she was asleep, he heard, "Come in."

Jack opened the door saying, "Sorry to bother you, but I think this might be yours..."

He froze in mid-sentence. He told himself not to stare, yet how could he not?

Elizabeth was sitting up in bed, a pair of small square glasses resting on her nose, and nothing else. She was reading a large, boring looking history book on famous Napoleonic battles, and this book was all that was covering her breasts from Jack's greedy eyes. He could make out the slight shape of them, the way they curved, but if he tried to much to see them fully it would have looked way too obvious.

Elizabeth, on the other hand, hadn't seemed to notice he was staring at all. "Oh, that's very sweet of you," she said to him, smiling with that little smile of hers. "Could you just pop it on the end of the bed, by my feet?" She wriggled her toes under the blanket for emphasis.

Swallowing, Jack walked slowly to the small moving mound in the duvet, trying to keep his gaze firmly on that, resisting the urge to look up and see if he could see any more of her stunning naked figure. He placed the handkerchief by the foot, then stood there looking at it, unable to move like an idiot.

"Well," said Elizabeth, "thank you very much. Good night."

"Yes, good night," replied Jack hurriedly, relived of a cue to leave before she noticed the already growing bulge in his trousers. He quickly turned his back on her and walked out of the room, closing the door firmly behind him.

Elizabeth smiled again and put the history book down by her side. Reaching under the pillow she pulled out a pad of lined paper, on which she had already started making notes. She took a blue pen from the side table and, after a brief moment's reflection, began to write.

It was well past midnight by the time she had finished, but after reading it again, she knew that it was exactly what she needed to do.