Back at your Parents’ House

Even your parents’ house, no, your house, can’t dampen the optimism. You have a couple of weeks before term starts to chase away the memories and make it yours.

First the master bedroom. As a visitor you could avoid it. As the new occupier you have to claim it. You find plainer sheets to replace your mother’s flowery ones. You empty the wardrobe of her clothes and replace them with yours. You paint over the flowery wallpaper with off-white paint. You swap the curtains with those from your bedroom. The ghost of your mother remains in the room, but you’ve muted it.

You rearrange the furniture in the lounge. You wash the windows and the walls, clean the oven until it sparkles, add your crockery to hers, add your pots and pans to hers, fill the cupboards and the fridge with food. Open all the windows and let the summer air chase away the stench of old memories.

The downstairs bedroom you no longer need. Before it had been a bedroom it had been your childhood playroom. Now you convert it into a study. Dismantle the bed. Move a small table and chair in. Place the boxes in. You’ll get bookshelves later.

It’s while you’re arranging all this that the doorbell rings. At the door is a young woman, probably a couple of years younger than you. She’s short with long dyed red hair. She’s wearing a white, sleeveless t-shirt, with thin straps over her shoulders that reveals her tanned skin down to a peek of her cleavage. Her tight denim shorts show equally tanned, smooth legs.

“Hi, Mr Smith, do you remember me?” she asks. You do recognise her, the dyed red hair, the golden nose ring in her right nostril, you’d seen her at your mother’s funeral, and she’d tried to talk to you back then, but you’d been in no state to hold a conversation. When you struggle to remember her name, she gives you a cute smile and says it herself. “Agatha. I looked after the garden for your mother.”

Of course, she’s the gardener. You remember now. Your mother spoke highly of her. You nod your remembrance and invite her in. She heads straight to the lounge, peering into the other rooms as she goes. “You’re rearranging the furniture. Are you moving back in?”

“Yes, I am.”

“If you need any help moving things I could help.” You look at her. She’s short and slim and looks a slip of a girl. She sees how you’re looking and smiles. “I’m stronger than I look. And tougher.”

The last line makes you wonder how tough she’d be while being pounded by the beast in your pants. You shake your head. Before you’d never have thought such. Now these intrusive thoughts are like a blizzard. Before you wouldn’t have noticed the outline of her bra under her white top. Now you can’t help but focus on it and wonder what her breasts look like. They’re a handful but look larger due to her short, slim frame.

You offer Agatha tea. She accepts and you head to the kitchen to boil the kettle. She follows.

“What can I do for you, Agatha?” you ask while you get out the teabags and wait for the kettle to boil.

“You’re moving back in. I wondered whether you still wanted a gardener. I don’t know whether you know, but your mother paid me for the whole summer before she sadly passed away. So, I’ve been looking after the garden. But if you’re moving back in, I was wondering…”

That explains why the garden isn’t overgrown. You had wondered, just not very hard. You’ve never been into gardens. Your father was, which is why the garden is so big, and so intricate. When he died your mother tried and failed to keep it running, which is why she hired Agatha to look after it. Two days a week, spring, summer and autumn, and even one day a week during the winter.

“She paid for the whole summer? In advance?”

“Yes, six months. I’ve still got about a month left on that contract. I’ve recorded my time, if you need to check that.”

“No, that’s fine. How much was she paying you?”

She tells you. It sounds expensive.

“That much? I’ll have to think about it. I tell you what. You say you’ve still got a month paid. Let’s keep it at that, and I’ll see in a month’s time when I get my first paycheck. I don’t’ know whether I can afford it.”

“Nothing I could do to make you change your mind?”

Is this pushing out her breasts as she says that, and batting her eyelids? It does appear that way. She looks up at you with a wry, seductive smile and you feel your body stirring to her attention. Probably been paying too much attention to porn recently.

“Nothing that I can think of. Why don’t you show me what you’ve been doing these last few months.”

She agrees to that. You take your drinks, and Agatha leads you into the garden.