Eighteen Months

I'd just started the second semester of my freshman year of college when I got the news that my parents had been killed in a traffic accident. They'd been driving to work and a semi-truck crossed the median and ended their happy lives. My parents were just renting their house so after the funeral and after I got their things sold off there wasn't much else for me to do so with my summer semester paid for by a student loan I went back to school after the funeral. All too soon the semester ended and I had to deal with some realities. My grades were pretty good and I was looking forward to finishing school but now with my parents gone their signatures on my student loan didn't count anymore.

Despite a lot of pleading on my part I wasn't just cut off from finishing school I was also saddled with a hefty debt that was going to have to be paid off. School was over for me and I had to start looking at other options and that included a serious effort to find a place to live. I started asking around with friends if I could stay with them for the fall and I hate to say but I found out who my friends were. No one gave a damn for me and I realized that if I'd gone missing no one in the world would really care.

It was an act of desperation when I called my 'Uncle' Kevin. He wasn't really my uncle; he was my aunt's widower. She'd died of cancer a few years before and left Kevin the family ranch. In a way I had a right to be there but the place was legally his since he and my Aunt had bought it. I wasn't expecting him to let me come live there and I was surprised when he said we could talk about it if I wanted to come visit. We'd never really been close or anything so it was pretty nice that he'd even consider letting me live there and I was also relieved to at least have a place to stay even if it was just for a few days.

A week later found me getting out of a taxi on a road well outside of Cody, Wyoming. The taxi let me off at the gate and I walked the mile up the drive to the house and knocked on the door.

"Susan! Come on in, I've been expecting you!"

Kevin took my backpack and set it down near the door. I didn't mention to him that my suitcase with most of my clothes had been stolen from the bus somewhere between Pensacola and Denver. Kevin had a gentle smile and a bushy mustache and I'd always thought he looked like Sam Elliot...he even had the gravelly voice and the cowboy drawl to go with the image!

"Come on in here, I've got some coffee going and I bet you're hungry."

Truth be told, I was famished!

We sat down to a pretty decent lunch and several cups of coffee as we caught up on family things and he said his condolences about my parents. It was about an hour later when I finally broached the subject about living with him for a while.

"Yeah, that." He sat back from the table and crossed his legs. "Well, here's the deal, Susan. Since your aunt passed away I've had this place to myself and I miss having a woman around here. There's chores to do, food to cook, and the place simply needs a woman's touch. And I'll be blunt that you're not hard to look at!"

(Some people say I look like Emma Roberts bit with blue eyes)

He sipped at his coffee and then continued.

"So I have an offer for you. You do everything I ask over the next year and at the end of the year I'll pay you one hundred thousand dollars. Cash."

My eyes went wide at the offer! It was an unbelievable chance to get my life back on track!

He held up his hand as I was about to speak, "But before you say yes understand that once you agree then I'm not letting you out of the deal until the end of a year. For a whole year you're going to be at my beck and call and you're going to do what I ask whether you want to or not. It won't be up to you. But you know I'm good for the money and you know I'm a man of my word so what do you want to do?"

"Can I think about it for a while?" It was a lot to take in.

"Sure, you have until the coffee gets cold. I have a little agreement here for you to sign if you agree and while it's not legal by any measure it'll represent the terms of our deal. Read it."

He handed me a one-page document that read as follows:

I, Sarah Foley, agree to be the indentured servant of Kevin Wilson for one calendar year to be inclusive of twelve entire calendar months. I understand that in return for a compensation of $100,000 I agree to be a slave for this term and that as of this moment I consent to any and every want, need, or desire of Kevin Wilson.

"You want me to be a slave? That's crazy!" I tossed it back on the table.

"Then say no and leave. Or say yes and sign it and get your college education paid for you at the end of the year. Your choice."

I stared at him and stared at the paper and then he picked it up as if to tear it up.

"No! Wait! Can't we talk about it? I have nowhere else to go! I don't even have the money to get back to the bus station!"

He smiled and put it back on the table and slid a pen to me. "Then sign it."

I signed it. What choice did I have? I figured at least for the moment I'd have a place to stay and there was the pile of money waiting for me at the end of it and he was right that he could be trusted to pay me. Getting up, he picked up the contract and then he took me to see my room. We got my backpack put away and my few things put away in the dresser.

"Okay, we'll start by having you clean up the dishes from lunch. Get them cleaned and put away and come see me in the study for your next job."

I did as I was told and then he had me doing laundry, toilet cleaning, ironing, cleaning the floors, and dusting around the house. By 10pm when he finally excused me to go to bed I was exhausted but at least I had a place to sleep and a roof over my head. The arrangement was weird, to say the least, but I tried to look at it as just a job.

* * *

The next morning, we had breakfast and Kevin told me I was going to help him clean out the rooms in the basement. It was an all-day affair but we did really well and ended up with a pickup truck load of things to take to the recycling center. One of the rooms we emptied out had once been a large bathroom completely covered in tile, even the ceiling was tiled. Some of the fixtures were missing and Kevin said he was going to be getting it working again. Dinner came and went and afterwards we just watched some TV before I went to take a shower and get ready for bed. When I came out of the shower there was a note on my bed that simply said, "Come see me when you're done."

I didn't have much in the way of pajamas or anything modest to wear so I ended up getting my t-shirt and jeans back on before I went downstairs. He was sitting in the living room watching the news when I came out to see him. The fireplace was going and the room was warm.

He wrinkled his nose when he saw me in the dirty clothes. "Don't you have anything else to wear? C'mon, those things are filthy."

"Not really. I never really needed much at school and I lost my suitcase on the bus so this is almost everything I have."

He thought for a moment and then got up and left the room. When he came back he had a brand new fluffy white robe with him and he handed it to me. "I'd bought that for your Aunt back when I expected her to make it but she never came home again so I suppose this can be yours now."

"Now what are you standing there for? Go get out of those filthy clothes and then come back here."

I did as I was told and headed straight to the laundry room to change. A minute later I was wrapped up in the plush robe and came back to the living room.

He saw me and nodded his approval. "That's better. I'd been saving that thing all this time and now I know why. I hope you like it."

I smiled, "I do! Thank you, Uncle Kevin!"

He raised a hand at me as if to stop me, "No, I was never really your uncle anyway so you can just start calling me Kevin, okay?"

It was my turn to nod.

"Good. Now with that settled I have some things to discuss with you. Sit down." He gestured at the chair across from his and I followed his lead.

"First off, you didn't tell me about your student loan. Why not?"

"I didn't think it mattered, why?"

"Because I got a call from a bill collector who was looking for you and she says to me you ran up almost forty-one thousand dollars in debt, is that right?"

I felt hot as one of the realities of my life came up at me. Being at the ranch had been a bit of a respite from how desperate I'd been and now that respite was over.

"Yeah, that's right. I was going to pay it off out of what you were going to pay me, really!"

He gave me a serious look, took a sip from his coffee, and then spoke. "I'll pay this off for you but it's going to mean that you stay with me another six months. That'll be a year and a half of you doing absolutely everything I tell you to do. If you agree then you can sign this addendum to our contract..." he handed it to me "...and I'll call the bank in the morning and get this done."

"Can't you just take it out of what you were going to pay me for the year?"

He shook his head, "No, because you haven't earned that money yet and we have a contract that speaks to that arrangement. This would be something different and in addition to the arrangement we have."

I understood his point but another six months? Just one full day had been weird enough, but to commit to eighteen months of being a house maid? I saw Kevin contemplating me and I knew he'd already estimated my answer when I said, "Okay, I guess so. I don't have much choice if the bill is to get paid right away."

He nodded at the paper and I leaned over and signed it before handing it to him. He looked at it and then put it down. "There's a few more things. You have a cell phone, right?"

"Yeah, it's in my purse but it doesn't work anymore. It was prepaid and the money ran out."

"Bring me the cell phone and your purse."

I looked at him quizzically, wondering what he wanted them for.

"Susan, bring me your cell phone and your purse NOW."

The tone of his voice changing like it did got my attention and I went to my room and retried what he'd asked me for. When I came back to the living room I handed him both items. He took them and he opened up my purse and dumped it out on the coffee table. My wallet was the largest item and he set that to one side with the cell phone. The lip gloss I had in there he pushed across the table to me. There were a few other girl things in there and he picked them up and put them back in the purse. Then he examined it and found the side pocket and pulled out a round plastic container.

Recognizing it he looked up at me, "Birth control pills? Why do you have these, you screwing everything that moves?"

"No!!! I've never...I mean they gave them to me but it was just to make my periods a little easier is all, I swear!"

He threw them into the fireplace and I let out an audible gasp.

"You won't need those things anymore." He collected my purse and the phone and got up, "And these things are going to be put away for safe keeping. You don't need a purse to work around here. Now go to bed and I expect my coffee ready at six in the morning when I get up."

* * *

The next month saw the both of us settle into a routine of getting up before sunrise to handle chores around the ranch, some of my days were dedicated to laundry and cleaning, I took over the responsibilities in the kitchen, and around six at night we'd settle down in the living room to watch the news or the occasional movie. Once in a while Kevin would be sore and I'd massage his fifty-year old shoulders and neck until my hands were sore from the effort. He always responded well to my touch but it was one of those things that I wasn't quite comfortable with. I'd never had much physical contact with any man or boy before and just touching Kevin was sort of unsettling to me. Still, it was part of the job so I did it.

Every so often we'd sit down in the evening and just talk. He'd pour himself a glass of whisky and maybe even pour some for me, too. His whisky was pretty good so it wasn't hard for me to get used to sipping it with him. Our conversations sometimes went a little late and it would be a challenge to get up the next morning but it was worth it to hear what he had to say. Kevin had really loved my aunt and it seemed like he'd disappear sometimes when he'd talk about her in the early days of their marriage. They'd never been able to have children and from what he told me it was when they saw a doctor to look into the fertility issue was when they discovered my aunt's cancer. She fought it for almost fifteen years when she finally lost her battle and it was clear that he felt her loss dearly.

On my side of things, I told him of my dreams of being a teacher when I'd started college and how those dreams were tainted by some difficult realities. One of the problems was that my education was going to cost almost more than a teaching job would be worth. To make any money I'd have to get a Master's degree and then face over $100,000 in debts right when I started a teaching job at the low end of the wage scale. The other problem was that teaching wasn't the noble profession I'd thought it was. My classmates were focused on money and benefits and what they would do with their summer vacations and my professors were all about the unions and using our positions as teachers to be 'change agents' to try to reshape society into what they thought it should look like. I just wanted to be a teacher, not a politician. So when school ended for me I had been somewhat disillusioned anyway and had I stayed in school I probably would've changed my major. Kevin listened to all of this just as raptly as I'd listened to him and it was nice to have someone pay attention to me for the first time in my life.

* * *

November came in with a bang and saw us scramble to get the boarding horses into the barn ahead of a big blizzard. The cattle that grazed on the ranch had already been moved to a feedlot so at least we didn't have to worry about them when the snow started to fall. There was wind and even lightning as thunderheads moved over the ranch. The storm raged for three days and if it were not for the house and the barns being up on a rise we'd have been snowed in. The creek below the house was covered in snow so deep you couldn't see that there was a creek under it all. And each morning we'd get our clothes on to get out to the barn to feed the horses and by the time we came back to the house we'd both be wet and cold. I'll admit that it was the hardest I'd ever worked in my life. We'd be up in the dark and we'd work for hours in the cold.

When the weather finally broke we were fortunate that it was followed by a cold front so we didn't have to deal with flooding. The daytime temperatures didn't get up over freezing and the nighttime temperatures dropped to crazy cold! This was a huge change to me from Florida where I'd grown up but it was somehow comforting because I'd never appreciated having a warm house before. There were words I was using that I'd never considered before such as 'cozy' and 'cuddled up'.

Cuddling up in a blanket with the fire going was really nice and it was something I'd have never done in Florida.

The clear spell of weather lasted long enough that the owners of the horses were able to come get them and take them home. Kevin said this was a normal thing that the animals would be cleared out with the bad weather. That left us without a reason to get out of bed so early every morning. Still, he'd told me to have his coffee ready at six so I continued to do this. Some mornings Kevin would be up to have his coffee with me and other mornings he just slept in and, either way, I did my job.

Thanksgiving was actually quite nice. It was the first turkey I'd ever cooked and it came out pretty good, even if I do say so myself! The two of sat down to a pleasant meal and afterwards we retreated to the living room. In a change from our usual routine of sitting in separate chairs Kevin invited me to sit next to him on the couch and cuddle with him under a blanket. It ended up being a really nice time. Kevin poured me some of his best whisky and between the turkey dinner, the whisky, the warm cuddle, and a crackling fire I drifted off to sleep.

Around midnight we both woke up and got up to go to bed. As I was about to head off to my room I heard him speak.

"Come here, Susan." His arms were open and I turned to him and we hugged. It was one of the most loving things he'd ever done for me and I had no problem giving it right back to him. When we finally parted he leaned down and kissed me on the forehead and said good night.

* * *

After that night the hugging and the kisses on my forehead became something we did every morning and every night. It was a pleasant little ritual and our relationship changed into something else and I didn't mind. He was still very much in charge of things around the house but when he'd give me an order there was a certain softness to his voice now that made the orders a little easier to follow.

As December wore on the weather got colder. Our Christmas was almost as pleasant as our Thanksgiving had been but the two of us cuddled a little closer on the couch and Kevin wrapped his arm around me. The whisky came out again and we fell asleep on the couch just like we did the month before. This time, though, it was so cold when we woke up that I dreaded exchanging the warm living room for a cold bedroom.

I stood up wrapped in my robe and shivered. "I'm almost wanting to just stay out here where it's warm!"

Kevin looked at the fire for a moment and then said, "Yeah, it's really cold. I'm thinking you'll sleep in my bed tonight and we'll both be warmer for it."

I'd never slept with anyone else before. Not even as a child so this was something I had to think about. Kevin saw this.

"Let me make this easier for you, Susan. It's not a choice for you. I said I want you in my bed and that's final. Now come to bed." He held his hand out to me and shook it once to make his point. Taking his hand, I let him lead me to his room and after I hung up my robe on a chair I got into the bed. Kevin had gone to the bathroom and when he came back he rolled into the bed and cuddled up behind me.

"This is nice." He said before we both drifted to sleep.

* * *

After that I slept in his bed every night and every night he cuddled up behind me. The night before New Year's Eve I woke up to find his arm over me and his hand lightly resting on my breast. His fingers were lazily massaging me through my t-shirt and my nipple was giving me little tickling sensations in return. I wasn't sure if he was awake or not but when I went to move his hand I heard his breath catch. In the morning I woke up at my usual early hour and got up to go make the coffee. As I went to tuck him in again I couldn't help but notice the tent in the blankets and just seeing that left me a bit unsettled.

When he finally came out to get his coffee I saw his eyes linger on me more than usual and when he saw me looking back at him he turned around. "I'm going to go out and get some things done in the barn and it'd be nice to have the laundry done for the New Year. That means I want some fresh clean sheets on the bed tonight,

comprende

?"

I laughed a little at this and replied, "

Si senor

!"

It was nice to lighten my mood a bit and I went right to work on the laundry and had everything done before ten in the morning when Kevin usually took breakfast. It was around quarter after ten when I started to wonder where he was and I put on my rubber boots and headed out to the barn to find out what he was up to. The barn had a trough in the middle that was usually covered by grates but this morning the grates were up and Kevin was knee-deep in poop struggling with something.