Patreon Story: The Tutor, Parts Seven & Eight

PART SEVEN

How had I lost track of time?

There was literally a clock on the oven. The kitchen may have been huge, but it was also an open design with plenty of visibility. All I had to do was look up from the various tasks Trixie gave me, and I could have seen how long we were taking to prepare lunch and prep for dinner. But I didn’t. And now Trixie was telling me there was more to do.

“Sorry, Trixie,” I said, deciding immediately to call it quits. An extra set of hands may be helpful, but she would have managed just fine if I had decided to turn down the tutoring opportunity and wasn’t here today, “I need to continue my session with Annabelle.”

“Ms. Moore, stay. Please.” After the low key subservient way the young brunette girl spoke to Annabelle, she was surprisingly firm when speaking to me. “You said you would help me with the kitchen. That means cooking and cleaning. The job isn’t done until the room is spotless.” 

If you’re a stickler, sure. Personally, I tend to do the dishes a little while after making my meals. This didn’t exactly line up with my lifestyle, however, so who was I to argue? “I know, but-”

“But nothing. How about this? Get started on the dishes while I take Ms. Annabelle her meal. I’ll ask her if you may return upstairs instead of assisting me. Okay?”

“Trixie-”

“Dishes, Meredith. I’ll be right back.” 

With a pointed drop of the prepared plate onto a silver tray, Trixie added a small salad bowl and a glass of sparkling ice water she had recently poured to the mix. Then she walked out of the kitchen without another word, tray in hand, leaving me speechless behind her. 

What was happening? 

Rather than treating me as a guest, the girl literally dressed as a maid was bossing me around. I’m pretty sure she and I were the same age, too. And yet, I felt powerless to do anything but reluctantly obey. I wasn’t the biggest fan of confrontation, especially with people I barely knew, and something told me that following Trixie upstairs would result in something like that. Surely Annabelle didn’t want her new tutor wasting this much time downstairs, but she also hadn’t come to check on me. Was she too spoiled to bother? Or maybe she lost track of time as well. Or, more likely, she wanted a bit of her Saturday morning to herself if given the opportunity.

Regardless, there wasn’t much I could do in the meantime. At least Trixie said she would ask Annabelle, and I’m pretty sure the teenage girl would suggest that I should return. There were plenty of people who could wash dishes, but only so many that could teach undergraduate-level mathematics. 

Sighing, I trudged over to the sink and started running the water to warm it up. Even if I was heading upstairs in a minute, I could at least help Trixie a little. Better than just twiddling my thumbs. While I didn’t appreciate the way she spoke to me, I could understand how stressful it could be to handle all the chores that came with a house this size. 

Where to start? Trixie had only made lunch for Annabelle; a meal for one girl, and yet there were so many dirty dishes. I suppose we did some dinner prep as well, but still. Rather than coming up with a game plan like I might do at home with my more familiar kitchen, I simply grabbed the closest pan and began scrubbing. I actually don’t mind dishes; it’s one of those chores that can be cathartic if you allow it to be. But not when there’s something more important to be doing with my time; Annabelle’s time, too.

It took Trixie a little longer than I expected for her to simply deliver a meal and have a short conversation with Annabelle. From what I had seen so far, conversations between the two of them didn’t last very long. But finally, a few minutes later, she returned. “Miss Annabelle said to stay down here until the kitchen is done,” she said, right away, “Then you may resume your tutoring.”

“Wait, what?” I asked. The moment I saw the girl arrive out of the corner of my eye, the plan was to finish washing the cutting board I was working on and then dry my hands. But, with Trixie coming to stand between me and the hand towels, that wasn’t as simple any more.

“We’re not done with the kitchen yet,” she replied. 

So what? Trixie is the maid; not me. “I’m only here for 45 more minutes,” I said, a bit exasperated as I set the board aside, “This is a total waste of my time!”

“Meredith, it will go much more quickly if you stop complaining about it,” Trixie said, “Now, will you please keep working on the dishes while I put everything else away?”

“No, I just said-”

“Now, Meredith.”

My aversion to confrontation wasn’t helping, nor was the girl’s curt tone. I hadn’t even noticed that she had switched from ‘Ms. Moore’ to my actual name, but it definitely snapped me to attention mid-conversation. But wasn’t she listening? At this rate, Annabelle and I would barely have any time for actual teaching. “But-”

“Dishes, Meredith. You’re wasting your own time at this point.”

“Umm . . .” I trailed off, at a complete loss. You’d think a girl dressed like that wouldn’t be intimidating, but I had no idea how to handle the abruptly bossy attitude. Relenting, with a small sigh, I turned back to the sink. “Okay.” 

Continuing to work on the barely halfway completed task, I picked up the salad bowl next. Once she saw that I was committed to the dishes, Trixie began working on everything else. Putting everything on the counters away, wiping down the counters, and eventually drying some of the dishes I had already washed.

All in all, it took a solid ten minutes together to make the kitchen spotless. It could have been twenty for Trixie, and I could have been with Annabelle, but no. Finally turning off the faucet and drying my hands off, I looked at the young maid with as stern a look as I could muster after subjecting myself to all that cleaning. “Are we done, now?” I asked.

PART EIGHT

Trixie didn’t bat an eye at my annoyed glance, but also didn’t try to press any more cleaning on me. From what I could tell, the kitchen was spotless, but I was half expecting her to notice some nit-picky thing we hadn’t dealt with yet. 

“That’s everything, Ms. Moore. Thank you for the help.”

“Great,” I muttered. Without another word, I left the kitchen.

I actually wasn’t sure if Trixie was the right target to vent my frustrations towards. She had been bossy, sure, but Annabelle also apparently said that I should keep cleaning instead of doing the job I was here for. And, of course, I was partly to blame for not standing up for myself and just walking away. Instead, I was my usual pushover self every step of the way.

The house was still intimidating in its size, but the layout was still straightforward. Now that I had been to Annabelle’s wing once, it was easy to retrace my steps. Down the long corridor on the first floor, back up the wide stairs by the front door, and all the way to the last door that opened into the spoiled teenager’s suite. I opened the door to her private living room without giving it a second thought, and immediately regretted doing so.

Annabelle was on a yoga mat, doing ‘upward facing dog.’ That would normally be fine, if not a little bit unexpected; except, in this case, the redhead was only half dressed.

Her clothes were neatly folded in half over the back of the sofa, and Annabelle was only wearing a simple black bra and a matching thong. Since she was facing me, my eyes were immediately drawn to her cleavage, exaggerated from the yoga position. Since I was standing, I could also see over her shoulders to catch her mostly bare ass as well. Her body was as flawless undressed as it seemed when she was dressed, but it was also a body I should very much not be seeing without clothes.

I immediately averted my gaze, the rest of my body still frozen from the surprise. Thankfully, Annabelle’s eyes were closed in the stretched out position, but opening the door and stepping into the room must have alerted her to my presence. Maybe she thought I was Trixie, coming upstairs to deliver a fresh drink or something; I could see how she wouldn’t bat an eye when her young maid walked in on her like this. 

Clearing my throat, still solidly staring out the window rather than at the half naked girl girl on the floor, I started with yet another unintentional, “Umm . . .”

“Oh. Meredith. You know, it’s polite to knock.”

Since I was making the effort to look away, I didn’t even know if she had opened her eyes yet. However, she didn’t seem particularly freaked out that it was me. Not in tone, at least; and there was no scrambling for clothes that I could see in my peripherals either. I guess there’s no shame when you’re confident and have a great body. “Sorry,” I mumbled. She was right. Even if we were studying here before, it was still Annabelle’s private space. I just hadn’t thought of it that way, since it wasn’t a bedroom. “I can wait outside, or something.”

“Don’t be silly,” Annabelle said, “I’m almost done. In the meantime, do you want to look over my answers?”

Like, while she was still doing half dressed yoga? 

In a matter of seconds, I had already lost all my steam. Between the kitchen and her suite, I was considering a mini lecture for the girl. About how I was here to tutor her, not to do Trixie’s job. About how I didn’t appreciate how presumptuous she was in terms of waving me off to help without even asking me about it first. The mental dots hadn’t all been connected yet, but I still wanted to say something. If this was going to be more than one session, it was important to set boundaries. 

But now, I was too thrown to even remember half the phrases that had formed on the way upstairs. “But, you’re-” I began, not sure where to even start. Speaking of boundaries, this was a whole different issue than what I had been preparing myself for. She was eighteen, and we were both girls, but the fact that she still attended high school made me feel a bit unsettled. “Can you please get dressed?” I ask. Immediately realizing I sounded a bit more like a babysitter than the peer she treated me like earlier, I made sure to hastily add, “Or, I guess I can check your work downstairs?”

“Nonsense, Meredith. Everything’s already set up in here,” she said, “And I’ll only be a few more minutes; promise. Does it really bother you that much?” 

“Well,” I said, then hesitated. Yes, it bothered me. I was already confused enough in terms of how attractive she was despite my straightness, and that was before everything else. The frustration of cooking and cleaning with Trixie. The surprise of walking in on Annabelle like this. Most recently, the addition of ‘that much’ to the question. I was stuck between looking super reserved, or having to stumble through an explanation of how it bothered me when talking to a girl who clearly felt totally fine with all this. 

Ultimately, I decided not to fight it. Mostly because Annabelle was using the same logic she used when telling me to go off with Trixie, but reversed. It would take me a few minutes to go through the problem set she completed, so she was just keeping herself busy in the meantime. Using the most of her time, I guess. 

Perhaps my body language would be enough for her to realize that this was all a bit awkward for me, or maybe I’d be more prepared to discuss it next time. “It’s fine,” I said. Still not looking at her; it felt a bit strange to talk to someone without making any eye contact, but I didn’t want to risk another unintentional glance at her body while she was mid-stretch.

Which was going to be difficult. As I sat back down on the sofa, I realized that the table in front of me didn’t hide Annabelle in the slightest. And she was directly in my line of sight.

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