"Can we talk about something?" Anna asks in a near whisper, poking her head into my home office.
Deep in concentration, I jump at the interruption.
"I'm sorry, Mr. Beatty. I didn't mean to sneak up on you. I want to talk to you about something, and I don't want your wife to hear."
Anna has cleaned our house weekly for the last year. I don't know her well as my wife usually deals with her, so I am surprised she wants to talk about something personal. I motion for her to come in and offer her a seat. Instead, she leans on my desk so close we were almost touching.
"I am going to come right-out with-it Mr. Beatty - I need money. My mother is sick, and I need to help her out. I don't make much cleaning and it takes all I earn just to live."
I ask about her mother's illness, a cancer of some type. Her medication costs about five hundred dollars a week. I feel bad for her, but we can't afford such an amount either.
"I'm sorry Anna, we aren't wealthy, I can't afford to pay you more or give you the money. I wish I could help, but I can't."
"I'm desperate Mr. Beatty. I need to get at least some of the money from you, and I will try to get the rest from the others I clean for."
Knowing how tight our budget is, and that my wife is like scrooge, I think I know why Anna has chosen to talk to me rather than my wife. But, what she says next comes as a shock.
"I don't expect you to just give me the money. For $100 I will have sex with you every week when I come to clean."
I start to say something but stop, suddenly aware of how close Anna is to me. I can feel her warmth across the gap between us. I can smell her shampoo and a salty hint of sweat from the work she's done. I try to keep my eyes on her face, but they follow my mind and quickly scan her body.
I'd never thought of Anna in a sexual way. For one thing, she reminds me of my daughter. She is in her mid-twenties and I am 55. For another, my wife is always home when Anna comes to clean.