SubscribeStar Story: The Tutor, Part 38

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Part 38

My wish was technically fulfilled.

Countless trips up and down the stairs, as well as a good chunk of time in Annabelle’s room spent trying to figure out where her various outfit pieces went. Trixie was dealing with the other bedrooms, meaning she wasn’t around to help. Girl clothes were difficult to organize, as I was personally aware, and everyone did it differently. There were too many combinations, and that was before getting into the fact that Annabelle’s clothes were a thousand times more expensive than mine and probably had a few color/material rules that I didn’t follow as strictly.

At the end of the day, I just had to make a number of educated guesses. Using what was already hung up in her excessive amount of walk-in closet space, I did my best to match where I could. This was the first time I had actually been in Annabelle’s bedroom, rather than her personal living room, and of course everything was perfect. Normally that would be unusual for an eighteen year old, outside of the rare type A teenagers, but the noticeable cleanliness could easily have been Trixie’s doing. The closet was no exception, which was particularly frustrating due to the fact that it looked pristine yet had no easily discernible method of how things were sorted. Outside the basics of ‘dresses here, blouses there,’ that is.

I tried my best. Hopefully Trixie would check my work before Annabelle saw it herself. For the time being, however, the spoiled redhead was nowhere to be seen. I was keenly aware of the uniform on my body, especially because of how unfamiliar and uncomfortable it felt. The slightest sound would startle me as I went about the task given to me, yet it never turned out to be anything. After what felt like forever, I finally hung up the last of Annabelle’s expensive clothes, and found the homes for her more simple garments in the nearby drawers. I absolutely noticed that we hadn’t washed her bras or underwear, and I’m not sure how I would have reacted to handling those. Considering what happened the other day–here with Annabelle, as well as in the privacy of my own place–I hadn’t sorted things out in the slightest when it came to her. At the end of the day, I just knew I shouldn’t entertain such thoughts. Sexuality spectrum and gorgeous redheads aside, she was too young for me and I was supposed to be a professional.

When I returned to the laundry room, the place was completely devoid of both clean and dirty clothes. Good. We could be done.

Arriving a few moments after me, Trixie stood in the doorway and gave me a nod. “Okay, looks like that’s all of it. You’ll be working on the bathrooms next, Ms. Moore.”

Wait, what? Stunned for a moment, I finally found my voice again. “What? No. Sorry, Trixie. I need to change, and prep for tutoring, and-”

“You said you would help with chores until Annabelle returned. Is she back yet?”

Did I say that? I couldn’t remember. My instincts told me I had simply been told to assist her, but so much had happened since I showed up. The uniform, the proper responses, the recent demeanor that was still succeeding in catching me off guard and creating a dynamic that was nothing at all like things had been when Trixie and I first encountered each other. Then again, the first thing she did upon meeting me was send me to the side door. Maybe she had always been subtly bossy, and I had been too distracted with my tutoring efforts and/or by Annabelle to notice.

As much as I wanted to trust myself, I couldn’t for sure recall how things had gone with Trixie when I first arrived. So I reluctantly answered her question, “No. She’s not.”

“No, Trixie,” she said, “Speak properly when you’re in uniform, Mere.”

’But- but it’s Meredith! But I’m not actually a maid!’ As badly as I wanted to snap what I was really feeling back at her, I knew it would come out sounding like an overreaction. I was a lot of things, but I was certainly not shrill. In the name of staying calm, however, I conceded the rest of it. “Yes, Trixie,” I muttered.

“Is Annabelle here?” she asked.

“No, Trixie.” I tried to will away the blush that was creeping up. Answering like that every time made me feel both ridiculous and self conscious. However, I had no better way of handling the girl, and I was far from tutor mode at this point.

“Then you have more chores to do,” Trixie concluded, “There are six bathrooms in the main house, and you will scrub each of them from top to bottom. I will supervise the first one, of course, to make sure you know what you’re doing. Is that going to be a problem, Ms. Moore?”

Mathematician. Top of my class. Relegated by my tutor’s maid to clean bathrooms. And I was letting it happen. “No, Trixie,” I replied, after a moment’s hesitation, “It’s not a problem.”

“Good,” she nodded, “Follow me.”

Still partially in disbelief, I let her lead the way to the next room over. She pulled item after item from one of the shelves, filling a bucket with as many materials as it could hold before handing it to me. After grabbing an armful of things for herself as well, she guided me out of the servant hallway and back to the main part of the house. “You’ll start with the bathroom off the foyer, and then we’ll move upstairs. Now, listen carefully. I don’t like repeating myself. ‘Top to bottom’ is more than just an expression. To start . . . ”

Trixie’s order was more or less the way I cleaned my own place. Shower first, because it was the most tedious. Only the standards were much higher. When I did chores, I had a fairly consistent ‘good enough’ approach to everything. Not that I was particularly lazy; I just preferred to clean on a regular basis. Since I didn’t wait until rooms were noticeably dirty, most of what I did was preventative and kept every job quick and light. That wasn’t the case while Trixie was supervising. Despite how the bathroom looked perfectly clean and tidy, she insisted on thoroughness. As I stood in the glass shower and scrubbed at every wall, she made me take several passes at each section despite how she was on the other side of the door and couldn’t even see my work half the time. She just told me that perfection was expected, and it was better to be safe when it came to both guests and residents.

The shower floor was easily the most demeaning part, as Trixie made me do it on my hands and knees. She didn’t actually use those words, thank God, but it took all of one second of me squatting down for her to tell me that scrubbing with proper leverage was important. The small hand towel she tossed me was more than enough to imply what she was implying. Face flushing at the indignity, as well as how I must have looked taking the position while dressed the way I was, I begrudgingly dropped to my knees and began scrubbing at the tile.

“Be thorough, Ms. Moore,” Trixie reminded me.

I didn’t respond. That was clearly a buzz word for her when it came to chores, and I was being thorough. Methodically hitting every inch of the shower floor in the name of getting off my knees as quickly as possible, I could already guess I’d have to do the same thing for the rest of the bathroom as well. A mop wouldn’t be good enough for the Alodia family, and it’s not like Trixie had grabbed one from the closet. I was going to have to do it by hand. As much as I didn’t enjoy the thought of Annabelle getting back and seeing me dressed like a maid, I was starting to accept the fact that it was going to happen. If I was helping ‘until Annabelle returned,’ I doubted I would have sufficient time to change back into my regular clothes before she saw me. If that were the case, she might as well hurry up and get here. I’d rather be a little embarrassed if it meant tutoring her and getting out of the collar I was stuck in, rather than doing Trixie’s job and not making any headway on either of those things. Aside from her ‘vouching for me.’ Whatever that meant.

The rest of the bathroom was just as painful. Going ‘top to bottom,’ which Trixie lectured and directed me through, I dusted every little surface before getting started on the mirror. It was extra frustrating that she was doing absolutely nothing to help. While I did remember that she mentioned supervising the first one, it still didn’t fully compute to me. She was the maid. Why was I doing her job for her, again? But I bit my tongue and kept letting her casually boss me around in her informatively strict way. Sink next, then toilet. Naturally, Trixie didn’t use a brush for the toilet like most of us did. Instead, I had to get back on my knees and use a sponge for the sake of being thorough. The good news was, it’s not like the thing was dirty in the slightest, considering how often every room in the enormous house was probably cleaned. Still, I didn’t particularly enjoy scrubbing it by hand, even if I had been given gloves to keep myself clean. Just like the shower, Trixie insisted on making multiple passes, especially in the nooks and crannies. I had to imagine that this was why she was so well paid, aside from it being a job at the home of such a wealthy family. The extra pay had stunned me when I had been kept in the kitchen for an extended time to help her, but this part of her work was a lot more grueling than preparing a meal and cleaning up after the task.

Finally, I had to tackle the floors. I was already on my knees from the toilet, but at least that had the dignity of being more upright. For the tile below, I had to drop to my hands again. Trixie lectured me through the extended process, and I could feel a bead of sweat or two on my brow by the time I neared the last section of the room. Pushing through, I completed the task by scrubbing the final corner until Trixie was satisfied.

“Good,” she said, “Make sure you stand up on the towel so the floor stays clean.”

That’s it? I should have been given a fucking metal for the shiny bathroom I just spent what felt like two hours on. Continuing to bite my tongue, however, I carefully stood up as instructed and gathered up the cleaning products that weren’t already back in Trixie’s bucket.

Of course, I wasn’t even remotely done. “Okay,” Trixie nodded, offering me the collection of supplies, “Let’s get you started on the next one.”

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