13. 13
13
This client’s home was unlike the ones Barrett had been told about. Located in a gated community, the simple two-story house was nestled in the middle of a row of homes, all nearly identical. Cotton-white siding made its brown shutters and newly-budding hedges pop.
He double-checked the address on his phone.
Yup. This had to be it.
It wasn’t what he expected after Sue Thompson’s sprawling manor. By no means was it any mansion. This… seemed like a family home.
Barrett slung a black duffel bag on his shoulder, grabbed a pail of supplies out of the back of his Jeep, and strutted to the house. He started up the steps and nervously tripped up the last one, slamming down shoulder-first onto the wood in front of the door.
“ Ow, fuck ,” he whispered, collecting the fallen fluids and scrub pads before rising to his feet. He whispered to himself, embarrassed, “ Not off to a good start, are ya, Dip-shit? ”
He knocked hard and rubbed his shoulder, watching a chain-suspended bench swing sway in the cool breeze as he waited for someone to answer.
A short, Hispanic woman with wide eyes opened the door. “You must be from Man Maid .”
“Yes. I’m Barrett, your Norse God. Are you Ms. Aguilar?”
“Yes. Just… you can… call me Maya.” She seemed flustered, smitten by his appearance, even in his street clothes. She shut the door behind him with rosy cheeks and a bashful smile.
“Great, Maya, do you suppose there might be somewhere I can change into my, uh, uniform?”
“Oh, of course. Right this way.” Maya led him to a small bathroom to his right.
Barrett stripped, quietly managed twenty push-ups and thirty crunches and re-dressed quickly, bursting forth from the cramped room in a movie-quality Viking costume.
“ I am Odin ,” Barrett growled at the top of his lungs, “ God of war and death! I will not stop until your home sparkles like the floors of Valhalla!”
Maya laughed, covering her face. She was turned on and embarrassed in equal measure as her eyes took in the details of his attire.
Brown fur pads rested atop his bare shoulders attached to a cloak, the straps of which crisscrossed across his oiled, muscular chest in a leather ‘X.’ His pulsing forearms bulged out of matching leather bracers with intricate silver scrolled designs.
Just below the muscular dip of his abdomen sat a pair of shiny brown leather shorts that fit his rock-hard ass like tight briefs. The fur of his calf-high boots was grazed by the bottom of the cloak, the ensemble pulled together by his sex appeal and sudden confidence.
Maya’s syrupy brown eyes darted back and forth over his muscles, tanned cheeks blooming a bright hue of red.
“My dearest Freya,” he said, scooping her into his arms. She yelped like a woman at a male revue and buried her face in his neck. “Show me, my dearest, what room you would like me to get started in.”
“Um, the kitchen.”
He groaned theatrically, voice booming through her living room. “Lead the way, darling Freya!”
The modern kitchen was lit brightly with swirled-glass pendant lights. Beyond it, chocolate-colored cabinets with copper details gave the room a strangely welcoming feel. The cocoa-colored walls in Maya’s uncluttered home were devoid of personal photos, showcasing only framed, impersonal wildlife photography in its stead.
As he scrubbed the backsplash behind the copper sink, Barrett took notice of its contents. One bowl. One plate. One coffee mug and a single empty wine glass. She lived alone, and she clearly didn’t socialize often.
He cleaned them all carefully, applying the tips Maggie and the other devout women had given him, careful not to shatter her delicate stemware.
Behind him, Maya stood in the doorway, watching him work. She was wearing his cape around her neck. He put it on her once it became cumbersome, as it had been blocking her view anyway.
He turned to her and smiled, shaking his wet hands over the sink. “Maya? Are you alright?”
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry, was I being awkward? I do that sometimes. I don’t get a lot of company.”
“Are you and Mr. Aguilar homebodies?” He knew the answer already.
Her smile fell a little. “There is no Mr. Aguilar.”
“What about a Mrs . Aguilar?”
She chuckled. “No wife either. Kinda just… married to my work, I guess.”
“What do you do?”
“I’m a software developer.”
“Cool. Like, video games and stuff?” he asked, moving down the counter. He lifted up a cookie jar and started wiping it down with a damp cloth.
“No, nothing fun like that. Mostly boring stuff. Well, at least, to others.”
“Workin’ on anything right now?”
“I’m troubleshooting one we just built, actually. I developed a program for a few laboratories that intelligently analyzes and accurately integrates peaks in gas chromatography. Then, it creates a report for the customer. Between the tweaking and patching, trying to get things fixed before launch, I haven’t had much of a social life.”
“Holy shit, so… you’re really intelligent.”
Her face beamed with pride despite her shy smile. This was a woman who lived to work.
“I don’t know about all that ...” She tucked a strand of black hair behind her ear.
“Sounds like you’re a heck of a lot smarter’n me.”
She stole a glance at his shiny ass before averting her eyes.
He stared at her out of the corner of his eye and mischievously grinned. “You don’t have to sneak-a-peek. You paid for this show. Gawk freely.”
“Feels… weird.” She laughed. “Feels rude to stare.”
“Odin is here to give Freya a show.” He set the cookie jar down, wiped more of the counter, and then started hosing the microwave down with antibacterial spray.
There was a long pause before Maya spoke again, weak and unsure. “Can I ask a weird question?”
“I have nothing but time. Fire away, Freya.”
“Am I… attractive?”
The question caught him off-guard. Barrett turned to face her, furry boots clacking on the tile floor, afternoon sun glinting off shorts so tight she could almost see his religion. He held the microwave’s turntable in his hands, wiping it with a rag. “Excuse me?”
“I mean… just… like, objectively, from a male point of view? I’m… I’m not trying to come onto you. I just figured… with you here… dressed like that… I figured we were past formalities, and I could just ask you honestly.”
“I think you’re beautiful,” he said genuinely. Then he laughed. “But, I don’t know how much weight that holds. If you ask around, people will tell you I find a lot of women attractive.”
“A bit of a womanizer, huh?”
“Womanizer sounds mean and, like, calculated. I prefer to think of myself more as a dabbler, of sorts.”
“A player .”
“A lover .”
“A real Romeo.”
“Hey,” he laughed, “don’t you slut shame me! Just because I’m a Norse God doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings.”
“Sorry that I asked. I know that was… inappropriate.”
“If you weren’t a client, trust me, I’d have hit on you by now.”
“You’re just saying that.”
“No. Men should be tripping over themselves for you. Although, you’re probably living a lot more stress-free life than some of these married chicks.”
“True.” She nodded.
“I like my life the way it is most of the time. I like my solitude. I just get lonely, too, sometimes.”
“You should go out. Go dancin’. That’s what I do. I love a good Cotton-eye Joe.”
“I’m not the line-dancing type.”
“What kinda type are you, then? You like to cha-cha? Waltz?”
“Try pole.” She laughed and covered her face.
“Excuse me?”
“Hold on. Oh my God, I can’t believe I’m showing you this…” Maya disappeared into the living room, rifled through a few things, and came back with an eight-by-ten portfolio.
Barrett placed the glass plate back in the microwave and folded his arms across his baby-oiled pecs.
Maya flipped the page open to one of the plastic-sheathed photographs inside and shoved the book toward the Viking God in her kitchen with a look of embarrassment.
“Holy shit! Is that you?” Barrett asked, snatching the portfolio fully away from her. In the book were blurry snapshots of a woman dancing on a chrome stripper pole at what looked like a dance club. In one of the images, the woman was upside down, holding the rod, doing splits in the air.
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph!” He flipped through the pages to another where he saw a photo of a younger Maya holding a first-place award.
“I didn’t even know they had competitions for this kind of stuff. Dammit, I want to be a judge!”
“I was a wild child. First place in the New Mexico pole dancing competition… three years in a row,” she boasted. “Although, you’d never know it now that I’ve packed on about twenty pounds.”
“Oh, stop it. You look amazing.” Barrett flipped through more pages, each an incredible shot of an animal. The book was full of prints of peacocks, jellyfish, monkeys, and crustaceans.
“Did you take all these?”
She nodded and waved it away. “Yeah, but you don’t have to look through those.”
“These are incredible.”
“I used to photograph for a bunch of magazines. That was before I learned C++.”
He closed the book and looked at her with sincerity. “You’re a cool chick, Maya.”
She smiled, too embarrassed to respond. She took the book and plopped it on the kitchen island, backing up to her original vantage point in the doorway.
“What’s that?” She pointed to the corner of the floor. “On the grout?”
Barrett looked around, confused. “Where?”
“Right there. On the grout in the corner on the floor.” She smiled. “Looks real dirty right there.”
What she was insinuating finally occurred to Barrett. “Oh, that? On the floor?”
He pointed to nothing.
“That? Oh wow, what a mess. That’s going to need a good scrubbing. Do you mind if I get down on my knees and get it soaking wet so I can really go to town on that thing?”
He lowered to his knees, grinning the whole way, sticking his shiny ass in her direction, muscles flexed.
She laughed, cheeks blushing again. “By all means. Don’t mind me. I really do adore when you’re… thorough .”