My right leg had a mind of its own. Rebecca frowned. “Why you keep bouncing like that? What’s wrong with you?” “Um, I … nothing.” “Bullshit, nothing. Something’s up; you been acting weird ever since we got back from Paris. What the hell’s going on, Chris?” I balled my fists. Clenched my jaw. Closed my eyes. Drew a breath. Took the plunge. “Okay. Okay. It’s just … well, now that we’re talking about moving in together, I ju...

Rebecca’s text triggered the panic button, and in my haste to get ready I stubbed my toe on the bathtub. Ignoring the pain, I focused on my mission: “house needs clean.” Because it was a Saturday and I wasn’t worried about concealing a lumpy garment beneath work clothes, I wore my new French maid’s outfit. I’d purchased the dress online a few days earlier while in the throes of Rebecca Strickland-Martin Withdrawal Syndrom...

Wednesday’s cleaning shift took a lecherous twist and my Rebecca Anne Martin obsession boiled over into full-blown delirium. Since the schedule called for light house cleaning on Mondays and Wednesdays after work, I normally would have waited until the weekend to scrub the floors. But Karl had tracked mud through the house, and the carpets and linoleum needed immediate attention. Stripping to my teddy and stockings, I hun...

With my nose pressing Karl’s boxers against the wall and my hands planted on my head, I had no concept of time, although I knew it was late when my masters finally started to stir because daylight had been streaming through the bedroom window for quite a while. I listened to the mattress shifting, Karl’s hacking and Rebecca’s groaning. Karl noticed me first. “What the fuck? What are you doing, Chrissie?” “Um, sir, you … y...

My masters had wanted me to get an early start Saturday morning, so by 9:30am I was already in my maid’s uniform scrubbing the hallway baseboards while Rebecca and Karl relaxed in bed smoking a wakeup joint and watching cartoons. From my kneeling position just outside their room, I fluctuated from cleaning to ogling the half-dressed, reclining stoners to glancing at their TV show, “Hoop the Horse.” When a wheel fell off t...

The Carbonara Florentine recipe was no piece of cake but it was worth the hassle since I wanted my angel’s twenty-sixth birthday dinner to be perfetto. I came home to an empty condo after work, changed into my frock and scrambled around the kitchen hoping to have Rebecca’s favorite-but-complicated-to-prepare dish ready by the time she returned from wherever she’d gone. Everything was set by seven, with the pasta warming i...

I had taken great pains to symmetrically arrange the cheese wedges, fruit and other nibblers on the serving platter, but Rebecca was too busy ogling a photo on her friend Katie’s cellphone to notice my meticulous craftwork. “Day-um, girl, you hit that?” My angel leaned forward and plucked a pineapple slice from the tray after I’d placed it on the table and reassumed my position at attention near the sofa with my hands fol...

Rebecca was in the lavender haze when she returned home from her date. It made me want to puke. Prior to my mistress’s arrival, I’d spent a quiet Sunday evening hand-washing her delicate garments and peering out the laundry room window that overlooked the condo parking lot. When Rebecca’s SUV finally pulled up, I hurried to the kitchen and placed an ice-cold glass of Diet Coke on the silver serving tray along with a vase...