The day to day reality of what she has started comes home to Mia. How will she continue to be two people at one time? Maid to be a Man? By Maid Joy

Chapter 2

A day later, Mr. Gerome's lawyer had shown up at the house unexpectedly. He had not called ahead to let them know he was coming; his reason was Angie's contract.

He went over all the points in the contract with her, and had her sign both copies. Mia was called to witness the signatures, and the lawyer was all smiles.

Then he looked at Mia. "Sorry, but I didn't get your name?" he asked.

"Mia Warner," she said with a curtsey.

"You haven't signed work contract have you? If not, we need to get you to do so. I don't remember your name on anything I have received from Mr. Phillips."

Mia's breathing quickened. "Um, no, I haven't signed any contracts. There was a problem when I started work here, and Mr. Gerome just had me start working. He set it all up."

The lawyer nodded. "That's fine. I'm sure it was just an oversight. Let me have your identification and I can go draw up a contract identical to that one and make everything legal for you."

Now Mia was really close to panicking. "Um, that was the problem. I don't have any ID. You see, I came here... I mean, I lost it in the move."

The lawyer looked at Mia sharply. "Ms Warner, do you have identification at all?"

Mia's head dropped. "No sir," she said in a very quiet voice.

The lawyer stared at her. He nodded. "Illegal immigrant, huh? Well, your back isn't wet enough to be from Mexico, so you probably snuck in from someplace up north didn't you?"

Mia's mind was racing. "Um, yessir. I came from Manitoba. I came down here on a bus and just sort of stayed. I lost all my documents and everything, and couldn't get back home. I lived in an orphanage up there in Brandon. When I found myself across the border, I didn't even think. Mr. Gerome found me crying in a diner after I’d been turned down for work there and offered me a job."

The lawyer sighed. "Very well. I'll see what I can do to get you legally working in the United States. Until then, don't go anywhere. We can't have you picked up by the police for any reason. I'll get you identification and work permits."

Mia smiled. "Thank you very much sir," she said with a curtsey.

Angie escorted him to the door. When she came back, she mimed wiping her brow. "Wow that was close. He could have reported you and then they would have to deport you. I'd hate for that to happen."

Mia nodded. "Yes, I really don't want to go back to Brandon. I don't have anything back there."

"I wondered why you didn't have any clothes except for the uniforms, now I know. But if you came here by bus, why do you have a car now?" she asked in a puzzled voice.

"Well, uh, it's not really mine. Mr. Gerome gave it to me, er, he's letting me use it. He knew I didn't have any transportation, and he is allowing me unlimited use of that car." Mia was getting really nervous.

Angie thought and nodded. "Then the first thing we have to do when you get your next check, we have GOT to get you something other than maid's uniforms."

Apparently the vintage clothing wasn't ideal for daily working wear. This was sadly discovered when the uniforms they found for Angie had ripped while trying them on. Mia had to admit that her own uniforms were giving her some concerns in that department as well.

She immediately sent off a note to Mr. Gerome and had soon received a response. He put another $5000 into the household accounts to allow for the rush order of new uniforms for both ladies. Mia then contacted Ms. Hallyard, Modiste and begged her to come out to the house this Saturday (for an extra remuneration).

The dressmaker and her assistants left after a four-hour session with each girl, having exhaustively measured them and written numbers down. Fabrics and colors were just as exhaustively gone over. Winter daywear would be different from summer evening service wear. Mia and Angie would both have to have multiple copies of each full uniform.

The one constant was the collar, cuffs and some kind of apron. Ms. Hallyard tried to convince Mia that it wasn’t necessary, but Mia didn’t cave.

"Mr. Gerome was very specific about the styling of the uniforms. He wants a costume that is reminiscent of the Victorian era to remind the potential buyers about the history they will receive along with the physical property. If you feel unable to fulfill the order, I will look for someone who can."

Ms. Hallyard was quietly horrified; the commission she would make after expenses would keep her shop going for months. She quickly changed her mind and agreed that cuffs and collar were a must.

Mia and Angie were now excitedly waiting to receive delivery of more than a dozen uniforms and four corsets each. It would take some time for the first sets to be finished. With the size of the commission Ms. Hallyard would be making, Mia knew that the work would be a priority for her shop.

Until then Angie would have to make do with the vintage clothing that she could still wear. While they had no shortage of more clothing for Angie, Mia didn't want to ruin their value by destroying another outfit by accident.

Angie had settled in as if she had been always there. No task assigned to her, from polishing the silver or helping with the rearrangement of the kitchen for more efficiency, to helping reorganize the library was met with distain. It made life so much easier for Mia. A week later, Mia couldn't remember a time when Angie wasn't there.

Mia had finally finished putting the last listing on eBay. Many of the pieces of clothing had been sold and were being shipped out as fast as possible. Five or more generations worth of clothes were gently boxed and sent to new owners. A generous selection of the clothing was being sent to various historical groups and "Mr. Gerome" was very happy about that.

The only things that were not being sent out were the clothing in milady's closets and the uniforms that Mia and Angie wore.

Both Mia and Angie had played pretend a bit and tried on milady's clothing, just to see if it fit and to see the beauty of the gowns on a live person instead of a dressmaker's dummy.

It was hardly all play; there was a lot of work left. While the attics were finally emptying, there was refuse that still needed to be cleaned out as health hazards.

Angie had seen a rat up in the attic, so they elected to stop cleaning up there until the exterminators came out and finished their "removal" project.

While they waited to be assured that the rodent population had been eradicated, they turned to the jumble in the basement. The two maids went to work on all the chemicals and paints first. They both put on breathing masks and gloves to deal with the items that seemed to be dangerous. All cans of anything, even if they looked like they could be used, were set aside to be taken to a specialist in their disposal. The only liquids exempt from the trash were things that could be collectables, like the cases of old soda bottles they found. When she saw Mia about to throw out the bottles of Red Rock, Coca-Cola, Doctor Pepper and Vess Billion Bubble Beverages, Angie stopped her.

They did a bit of research on the Internet, and found out what had been unearthed now. Eventually a process similar to the selling of the clothing was organized.

They awoke at 7 AM and immediately after breakfast and routine cleaning, they worked until late in the day ending no earlier than 6. They carried cases of soda or individual bottles upstairs until their arms and legs were shaking with fatigue. Cleaning them up and photographing the bottles gave their bodies a chance to rest, especially while listing them on eBay. When the bottles were sold, they were very carefully packed and insured before being shipped out.

The money that came in went into one of the accounts that Mr. Gerome had set up from the antique furniture sales. For everything that was actually worth some money, there were twelve things they found that were simply junk.

Getting the refuse out of the basement required hiring a few strong men who came out for a couple hours every other day. At their suggestion a construction dumper had been rented for the duration. The crew was absolutely required to do the heavy lifting. After all, two girls carrying a railroad tie while dealing with their skirts on stairs was neither possible nor safe.

After one of the workmen whistled and asked to be notified when they started on the tools, they knew they had another source of items for sale.

Along with the windfalls of tools and soda, more artwork turned up in some of the storage areas. Angie couldn't believe how much there was, and Mia was unimpressed. They started bringing the paintings up and gently dusting them for resale.

It was during this frenzy that the lawyer for Mr. Gerome had returned. He had a large package of papers and documents for Mia.

"Okay," once they were seated in the Drawing Room. "I have a number of things here for you to keep and some for you to sign. Don't ask me how I got them, just take them.

"First off is your birth certificate. I called some contacts up in Brandon, Manitoba and we found the birth records for you. I have a copy of it right here. If you didn't know your parent's names before, now you do."

He pushed a certified copy of her birth certificate over. Mia picked it up. Considering that the identity of Mia was completely fabricated, on the spur of the moment, it was amazing that they had found records of her birth. Could there be a real Mia Jane Warner out there someplace?

"Next is your work visa. You’ll have an official Green Card now. Hang on to this temporary visa until we can get you the documents you need to stay as an American Citizen. I will be taking your picture in a few minutes and I'll messenger over any documents that need a picture before they’re completed. You’ll be responsible for getting a valid drivers license.

"I also have a Canadian Passport for you. The application had to be fabricated since you didn't apply when you came down here. Just sign on that line there -- and that's that.

"This is the contract you have with Mr. Phillips. You and he had a verbal agreement; in a conversation with him via email he gave me the particulars of it. I need you to sign and date this from two months ago right on that line... and now I sign... and that's done.

"Here is the title to the car you’ve been using. Mr. Phillips was most insistent you receive this particular vehicle. Sign here." The lawyer looked sour as he put the document in front of Mia. He moved them aside once she signed so quickly Mia found it difficult to keep up.

"These are the documents for a bank account in your name. I've had the pay from the last two months deposited already, with all the various government withholding taxes and so on deducted. If you sign this bank signature card --, thank you. This is your ATM card, if you need help on how to use it, please let my secretary know and she will go with you. Your pin number is in this envelope. Please don’t open it until you are alone then destroy the paper.

"These are the employment documents you must fill out. I've filled out most of the information, if you will just sign them down there.... Good, that's done.

"Since you aren't an American Citizen you don't have a Social Security Number, but I will find out what kind of Government ID you should have and get it to you as soon as I can. Right now the passport and Green Card should be enough to work as picture ID for you when needed."

He stopped and looked around. "Alison, would you get a sheet and throw it over the shower bar in a bathroom? I have to get a good picture of Mia here and put it on her passport."

Angie curtsied without correcting him and went to get the sheet. Meanwhile the lawyer had taken out a digital camera and a small tripod out of another bag he carried in. He put a powerful flash on the camera and tested it.

They went to the bathroom where Angie had the sheet ready. Mia stood nervously in front of the shower bar while he set up the tripod and camera. Five pictures later it was finished. He broke the equipment down and it all went back to the camera bag.

He pulled out a netbook and plugged the camera into one of the USB ports. He attached a small printer to another port and soon a picture of Mia was printed out on sticky-back paper. He cut the picture down to the proper size, then peeled the backing off and attached it to the passport. Next was using an "official" seal over the picture to make it very legal.

He handed the passport to Mia and grinned at her. "Okay, Mia, you are now officially you again. I wasn't able to do a background check on you, so my investigators will still be poking around, but it appears you have the full confidence of Mr. Phillips. He's designated the position of Head Maid to you and given you full authority to hire any staff you see fit. Since it's only the two of you here, I'm assuming that you won't be making any other hiring decisions for the time being?"

"Do temporary day laborers count?"

"Yes. Did you hire them through an agency?"

Mia’s voice was very small, "Yes sir."

"Do you pay the agency or the men directly?"

"Just the agency sir."

"In future, I would appreciate a communiqué before you act, but you aren’t in trouble this once. Send my secretary all the information via messenger including the amount you are paying, day they started and estimated end date. Employee wages come from a different account than the one you’ve been using so we’ll have to make sure the books are corrected.

"Mr. Phillips communicated with me in a teleconference not too long ago. He is in Paris right now and told me to help you in any way needed. Please contact my offices should you need anything."

With that, he packed up everything and headed toward the door. Mia walked with him and held the door. "I'll get you the rest of the documents as soon as I can. I have a feeling you and I are going to be very -- close." Mia's skin crawled at his lewd gaze fell on her.

She curtseyed and shut the door behind him.

Angie was excited now. "Oh Mia! How wonderful! Now you know who your parents are, what your birthday everything! You must be so excited!" She took her fellow maid's hands in hers and danced a bit in place to show her happiness.

Mia smiled at her enthusiasm. "No, not really excited. I didn't have parents yesterday, and today I'm not sure if I really want any. It's good to know their names, but that's all. I don't plan on bringing them down or anything.

"Now, we have chores to finish."

Later than night, Mia lay in her bed awake and thinking. She had made the name of Mia Warner up on the spur of the moment. She had pulled the province of Manitoba out of no place in the pressure of having to name somewhere she was from in Canada. She had remembered seeing the city of Brandon on a map at one time, and that’s where she plucked that name.

She didn't think that there really WAS a Mia Warner. If there actually wasn't, then that meant that the documents she had residing in her dresser were very good forgeries. Mr. Gerome’s lawyer had paid someone who knew how a lot of money to produce those documents to support a story the she had created. It also meant he knew some very shady people. He was a corporate attorney not a criminal one so where did the contacts come from?

When Angie started snoring, Mia got up quietly and went to the private study off the Master Bedroom. She went over to the wall and took down the window and poster of France she had up there.

She had put the poster, showing the Eiffel Tower prominently, into a frame that looked incredibly like a window. She had set them to one side and aimed the webcam attached to Mr. Gerome’s laptop so that it caught an edge of the frame and the Tower in the background. Everything had been hooked up and the lawyer, Richard ("call me Ricky") Biggs, had talked to Gerome Phillips while he was vacationing in France. The web cam had been slightly out of focus to disguise the features of Mr. Gerome so that it was hard to compare the image of the playboy with the visage of the maid Mia.

She’d had to slack in her duties in cleaning some of the rooms to sneak back here to have the teleconference with Ricky, and it had taken some fast footwork when she had only given the room a "lick and a promise" cleaning and Angie caught her at it.

She had given the excuse that she had found the most fascinating book and was looking at it, and had just lost track of the time. Angie laughed and said that it had happened to her as well, and if Mia didn't rat her out to the Housekeeper, she wouldn't either. They both had a good laugh about it.

Mia had always known that it would be impossible for one or two people to take care of this entire house by themselves, so she had worked out a reasonable schedule with Angie.

Every day, they cleaned the public rooms, that set of rooms that would reasonably be in use if someone came to tour the house. The Receiving Room, the Drawing and Withdrawing Rooms, the Game Room and Smoking Room, the Library, the Grand Foyer and Halls, including the Staircases were cleaned daily. The rooms the girls used, their bedroom, the Servant's Kitchen and Breakfast area were also a daily chore.

Six days a week, they each took another set of rooms. With twenty bedrooms and a bathroom for each, two maids couldn't keep them all clean if they worked every hour of every day. So they would each do two suites per day. This included a bathroom, bedroom and a small reception room where the body servant of the guest slept and the guest could receive others. Additionally, rooms like the Grand Ballroom, the Conservatory, the Greenhouse, various formal and informal reception rooms, offices for family and staff, "public" bathrooms again for guests, family and staff were cleaned once a month by an outside company. In addition to "their" rooms each of them did about 10 rooms per day.

Most of the work was dusting along with vacuuming the floors. Their own rooms they kept to a higher standard.

Normally they would finish with those chores around 5 PM, have dinner and then focus on sorting the messes from the attics and basement, packing and shipping the items that people had bought on eBay and then on entertaining themselves.

Mia had extra duties that kept her awake late at night. She would go into a study and open up the netbook she had for Mr. Gerome's business. She would then go into his email account and send whatever orders she had to send to Mia and Angie, answer whatever questions came up from the businesses and the lawyers, and approve the expenditures.

As far as the rest of the world was concerned, Mr. Gerome was in Europe having the time of his life, while his poor maid Mia was left here to take care of the house. She then took the Blackberry she had for emergencies and slaved it to the Netbook, logged in downloaded things she needed to know about, then hid the netbook and stowed the Blackberry in the petticoat pocked of her uniform.

Mia was shorting herself on sleep so her day off was spent napping in the mansion. She didn't want to be "far from home" if something happened.

It was on just such a day that the new uniforms arrived. She spent several hours going through everything and making sure it was all there.

She then tried on a selection of the things she would be wearing. She redressed from the skin out, making sure that every stitch of clothing fit. It did, perfectly.

The corset she chose turned out to be amazing. Since it was made just for her it molded her torso better and emphasized her non-existent breasts. She found that the special items she’s ordered came as well, a pair of quality breast forms and glue.

Angie had almost caught her on more than one occasion without anything in her chest region. Since physically Mia was male, she didn't have enough breast material to fill out the cups of her corsets properly. She had quietly asked Ms. Hallyard to include them and some sort of glue to attach them to her chest. Ms. Hallyard had been sympathetic, thinking that her hormones had been unkind to her and had not blessed Mia with any kind of a chest. She had patted Mia's hand and said that one day she would fill out.

Mia immediately went into their bathroom and fitted the breasts to herself. She read the instructions four times to make sure that she read them right, and finally glued them on. It took some time, but once they were on, it made Mia feel even better.

The new uniforms were all of the same Victorian "type." Long sleeved, high-necked, leg-o-mutton sleeves, full skirts coming down to the ankles, aprons that covered everything, almost like a pinafore. Pockets on the skirts and aprons so that little things could be put in them to be transported and disposed of.

The Housekeeper's Companion had STRONGLY advised against any pockets on any clothing that the female staff wore, since a pocket would allow milady's rings to go missing, or for a silver thimble to disappear and reappear in a pawnbroker's shop someplace. It had ended with the maxim that "a maid without pockets is a maid with a job for some time to come."

Mia didn't think that there was much danger of her or Angie stealing anything, so she had pockets put on the aprons and deep pockets were put into the skirts. There were just too many times when she needed a pocket and was without one.

On impulse, she decided to go out for a bit.

She wrote a note for Angie to let her know where she was going, and left it magnetically stuck to the refrigerator they shared. As she was leaving the note she thought There has got to be a better faster way to for us to do this.

She then grabbed a handbag, made sure her new driver's license and all her identification was in place, along with Mr. Gerome’s "windfall" ATM/Debit card, and went to her car.

It was an old beat up lime green VW Beetle from the 70's. He still had the car that Mr. Gerome's grandmother insisted he get on his 16th birthday. He had driven it ever since. He’d had to buy his own gas and insurance and made sure he kept up maintenance on the car out of his meager allowance.

At one time he had imagined himself driving something fast, sleek and expensive, but he found out how much work those were to maintain, and he decided that he would stick to basic transportation that was reliable.

Mia awkwardly tried to get in the car by stepping in. She discovered what a mistake that was; she was unable to get anything arranged correctly. She tried again, sitting down on the seat first then swinging her feet in. She made sure to pull the skirt and petticoats into the car and swung the door closed.

She was going SHOPPING!