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Chapter 1

Gerome had lived all his life beneath his Grandmother’s thumb. She had given orders about how he should dress, what he should eat, where he could go, whom he could see and how long he could be out without supervision. Now that the bat was dead, he intended to change all that.

She had been dying for the last five years. She sitting it in front of the parlor fire, brought there by her nurse, she had continued to run his life as she ran the financial empire she ruled. She issued orders and others jumped to do her bidding. He supposed that when you had a total corporate worth of a billion dollars (and growing) you could do what ever you wanted to and people would bow and thank you for it.

He never wondered where she had gotten all that money. She had been very open with the information. "Hard work. Hard work and effort. Hard work, effort and the sweat of my brow. I never had anyone hand me anything, and I kept the family fortune intact through the Great Depression, despite everything. I married and lost my husband, eventually I lost all three of our children. You're my only surviving relative, and I'll be damned if you waste it as soon as you have control of my dreams. You'll learn how to keep this fortune together and only then will you get your hands on it."

Well, he learned. She never stopped teaching him how to take care of the finances, how to deal with the government and how to deal with greedy executives. She taught him, with her switch sometimes, how to avoid tax pitfalls and what was an item of quality and worth buying, and what he should pass up because it was junk. She discouraged him from having hobbies as they were "just a way to waste time" in her oh-so-bitch-like opinion.

And now it's ALL mine, he thought. I can do ANY thing I want. The reading of the will was today, and probate was being expedited thanks to many measures she had taken while she was alive. Much to his shock the old witch had put everything in his name. He had the distinct impression she had retained her iron-fisted control until the day of her death. To find that he had been legally in charge of the entire empire for the last three years was disconcerting to say the least.

Now he was finally his own man at 25, and could do anything he wanted.

The Bat had made it plain that if he left and struck out on his own he would wind up with nothing from her. That threat alone was enough to keep him firmly tied to her purse strings and living in this mansion with its mothball smell everywhere.

Ding-dong the witch is dead. Which old witch? That damned bitch! Freaking song -- he hadn’t been able to get it out of his head for days. It made him so happy; he started whistling it to himself.

Now he’d a number of things to put into motion, plans he had to delay, waiting for this moment.

First, on the list was taking care of this house. The majority of the staff had been dismissed with thanks for their years of service, and a hefty severance bonus. They should do okay considering they just got paid for a year in advance, without having to work for it. I needn't have anything further to do with them. He kept a few of the staff on, the Stableman to take care of the horses until he could sell them. A few of the household staff stayed on for a couple more weeks. They helped him start the enormous task of going through everything in the place to get it ready and on the market. He wanted something a bit more modern.

It was fine to keep this mausoleum when there was a reason to do so, but now that I'm the only one left, I don't need 20 bedrooms, a formal ballroom, and other such Grand Epoch fripperies. Ten bedrooms will do nicely, he chuckled to himself.

In actuality, he was planning on getting a one or two bedroom apartment someplace FAR away from this place. He wanted to live a simple life. He had managers and company presidents who were competent enough and loyal to the company who could run things to keep the money coming in, all Gerome had to do was send the occasional order and sign the paychecks.

He'd have to buy their loyalty with bonus checks to make sure that they didn't ruin the companies. He'd also have to get auditors to make sure they weren't cooking the books. He knew how easy the money would dry up if he allowed it to be run by greedy incompetents. But once those safety checks were in place, he could relax and take it easy. He could live the good life for a change.

He saw no reason to exert himself anymore than he had to.

The family, a word he had learned to loathe, had actually owned a previous house, burnt down by the Yankees during the War Between the States. His ancestors had been as hard as his grandmother and rebuilt the house bigger and more grandiose than its earlier incarnation. It seemed that every generation thereafter bought more land to add to the estate and added more rooms, furniture and staff to go with the new acquisition.

Gerome sat back in the attic and wiped his brow again with the sodden towel he had brought. He had been up here every night until about 4 AM going through trunks and boxes, putting things away and moving things around. There were things he wanted to keep, simply from a legacy point of view, but more could be burned, recycled or just put in a landfill. It was amazing how much junk could accumulate in 150 years.

Such was to be the fate of many of the items he found. The waistcoats and christening dresses he figured he could donate to Goodwill, until he saw how much people were willing to pay on the Internet for some of these old garments. He started pulling them out and taking good pictures offering them on eBay. If someone wanted to pay him $500 for a ball gown that had seen better days, who was he to stop them?

The various antique dealers had already been out and hauled off most of the furniture he found in the attic. He was quite surprised that the furniture was worth that much, yet his lawyer had assured him it really was. Apparently much of it was matching sets of bedroom and sitting room items from some locally famous cabinetmaker. He only did a few pieces himself, and since Gerome’s family had been large and generous patrons of this artisan many of his journeyman pieces had resided in their attic, until recently.

For whatever reason, it made the pieces even more desirable.

Artwork was sold, along with many of the house wares. There wasn't much point in having fifteen pots that would hold five gallons of food each when he wasn't going to be entertaining two hundred people a night. He chose to keep the pots and pans he thought he needed to cook with for himself and a few guests, and got rid of the industrial sized things. Those windfalls combined had actually netted him a few hundred thousand dollars. Remembering his grandmother’s secrecy in hiding assets, he placed those funds into separate personal accounts.

On the advice of the real estate agent, he left the rooms downstairs fully furnished. He was told that he would get a higher resale price from the nouveau riche with furniture in it than if he just sold them empty rooms. He had professionals come in to clean the walls, the ceiling, the floors and carpets. The beds and furniture in the rooms were professionally cleaned then arranged by a decorator to show off their best attributes with an eye to restoring and enhancing their value. If he was going to try to sell this place for top dollar, it was in his best interest to make sure that things were actually worth top dollar.

The staff that he had dismissed was certainly up to his grandmother’s exacting standards. But when most of the rooms had been closed up from lack of use, they didn't get cleaned as often as needed.

On the advice of his very expensive estate agent, more modern upgrades were added to the ever lengthening list of projects. To expedite the process that would increase resale value, multiple crews had been in to do those upgrades as well. Grounded three prong outlets in all rooms, internet wiring and improved electrical wiring had all been done at the same time. It had taken an unheard of two months at "price is no object" spending to get it all done.

For the last week he had been rifling the attics for the remaining content, pulling out all the junk that accumulates with 150 years of people piling things in and forgetting about them. There were chests and trunks in one of the four attics where all the old clothing seemed to be stored. All of it was neatly folded and as well preserved as possible, packed in cedar chests and in mothballs to keep them from being ruined. He had found everything from a full evening gown from the Civil War to a Zoot Suit that must have been his grandfather's.

One of the wardrobes he came across that night was solely for generations of servant's livery. There was literally nothing missing. There were complete uniforms for Butlers, Footmen, Hall Boys, Housekeepers, Lady's Maids, Upstairs Maids and Downstairs Maids, uniforms for Nannies and Tutors. They went from the Civil War through Edwardian times, and there were a few bags with uniforms of a more current make. In some ways this was a find of epic proportions for someone who was into historical clothing. PSB would pay a fortune for this, if they had one. Mentally he rubbed his hands together anticipating a tidy sum.

As he had with the other outfits he had come across, he pulled everything out and laid them on the floor piece by piece assembling the outfits completely. He lifted the clothes up setting their hangers in the rafters, looking at all the accessories that were with them. He pulled the outfits over one at a time to the lighted studio he had set up. With advice from another expert it had good flashes and lights, a backdrop and a decent camera and tripod. He started taking photographs of everything. He was very grateful that in this age of digital cameras he didn't have to develop the film in a darkroom.

Time passed quickly and when he had finished with the servant’s wardrobe, he started putting it all away. He looked at his watch and found that it was about 3:30 AM, time for him to get to bed.

He stopped when he got to some of the maids uniforms from the turn of the Century. There were several that seemed about his size and he wondered what it would be like to actually work in the uniforms, given the restrictive garments of the period. He pulled out a top and skirt, the two petticoats that went with it, three of the linen aprons, a corset, chemise, corset cover, pantaloons, stockings and a set of work boots. He found a cap with frills and lace that would be pinned to the head and added that to the pile. He then finished putting the rest away.

He collected the outfit he intended to try on later the memory card from the camera and went down to his room. Once he had showered to get all the grime off himself, he decided to shave. He then made sure the clothes were as clean as possible. He wanted to properly get ready as though he were a maid working at the turn of the century.

He sat down on the bed and examined the clothing minutely so that he could see if it was going to be damaged by wearing it. The sturdy satins and linsey-woolsey were old and a bit stained, but he could see they were well preserved and should hold up to him playing with them. If he sold the other sets, he didn't have to sell this one if he accidently ruined it.

He spent some time uploading pictures of the clothes to eBay and putting up listings on every historical and costuming site he could find. He even found a few dozen professional costume shops and larger acting school props departments to send the listings to. At that point it was 5:35 AM and more than time for him to sleep.

When he awoke at nearly 1 PM, he got up and went to the staff kitchen to make himself some lunch. He had been doing the nighttime thing for about two weeks; it was easier and cooler for him to work in the attic then. He poured himself some coffee and added the adulterations he liked to it and thought about his day.

He planned to get dressed in the uniform and try doing the days chores in it, to see how the women of the Victorian time period could actually work in the clothes he had found in the attic.

He finished up his meal, went upstairs and got dressed.

He shaved his face again, as smooth and close as he could, then did his underarms for good measure. He put antiperspirant on and arranged the clothes in the order he would wear them.

First was the chemise. It was just an over the head garment and he pulled the cloth ties to keep it closed. Then on went the pantaloons and the stockings. He reasoned that he might not be able to bend much once the corset was on, so he thought it would be wise to put them on first. He reached for the boots and heard a rattling in one of them. He discovered that it was a buttonhook thank goodness. He’d been worried about how to button them. So he sat on a stool and pulled the shoes on, which actually fit his feet with a little pinching, and used the buttonhook to close it.

He stood and discovered that the two-inch heel on the leather boots weren't too terrible for him to stand and walk in; after all, some of his cowboy boot heels were higher.

Next was the corset. He opened it and put it around his torso and closed the hooks up the front. He found that there was about four inches of slack in the back where the laces were, so he took it off again and worked that much of slack out of the corset. He tied off the laces using a knot that he was sure wouldn't slip, but he could undo if he pulled on one of the laces.

He wrapped the corset around himself again. He couldn't get the front to close; he had taken out too much slack. There was a small gap between the closures of the front busk. Taking a gamble, he blew out all of his breath and quickly hooked it up, starting at the bottom and going up to the top. Once the last hook was latched, he took a breath and found that he could only breathe from the chest, not from the belly as he was used to doing.

He reached into the chemise and pulled up the chest material so that it looked like he had breasts. All his belly fat was being pushed up anyhow, so he just helped it a bit. He stopped and looked in the mirror and was astounded at what he looked like. If you didn't know, you would swear that he stepped out of some turn of the century burlesque picture.

He knew that the corset cover, another vest like thing, would be next since the petticoats would have to be tied over the top of it. He buttoned that cover up and pulled the smaller of the petticoats on first and tied it off around his now shrunken waist. Then he took the other petticoat and did the same, giving himself a proper bell-like shape.

Finally came the uniform skirt and blouse. He pulled the skirt on first. Careful to gently raise it over his head, and buttoned it up. The shape of the skirt was severely cut and forced him to pull a bit at the material to close the waist down, but the blouse was easy enough. The separate white cuffs and collar made it clear that this was maid's wear, nothing more.

Once the high collar was buttoned closed, he looked at himself in the mirror again. He was both disturbed and excited by how much this dress made him look like a woman. Sure his face was shaped like a V, and he had a short haircut, but you wouldn't think that just putting on these clothes would have such a dramatic change, yet -- it did.

The classic S form that was the rage during Victoria's reign was obvious in his shape now. His backside protruded out and his spine was forced forward at the bust. It presented and pushed his "breasts" upwards and outwards. It really looked as though he had breasts, probably a large A cup or a small B. On his short frame it looked right. The hem of the dress was only inches above the floor, showing just the toe and sole of the boots he had on. His hands looked like they were a girl's since he had small palms and relatively longish fingers. He shook his head in surprise.

He took up the apron, figured out the arrangement of ties, and soon had it on, with a maid's X on his back and the apron covering the entire front of his skirt and most of the bodice, it looked perfect. He picked up the cap and arranged it until it looked right and then pinned it to his head.

That's when he knew he was in danger.

He remembered when he was little finding some clothes in his grandmother's drawers and trying them on. The fabrics and the stretchy stuff were wonderful on his skin, and he liked them so very much. He also remembered the whipping he received for doing that. He never tried it again, for fear of being caught, but he couldn't help wanting to have them on again. His desires started to overwhelm him; the need so long repressed blossoming with the clothing.

More importantly now he could indulge that need and no one could or would dare to stop him.

He stepped down into the library, with his petticoats swishing around his ankles in a symphony of femininity and went over to the computer. He discovered that he couldn't sit as he normally did in his office chair, but that he had to perch on the edge of it due to the restrictions imposed by the corset.

He opened up his computer browser window and started it searching for several keywords. He looked up "Victorian Maid," "corset," "Victorian Dress," and many related search terms letting the search run all day, while he was working.

He stood again and went down to the kitchen to start his chores.

As he went through the day, he had to stop several times and catch his breath. It was hard working in a corset, but he had resolved to find out for himself what it was like. And now he was enjoying wearing the clothes.

He had to have the Air Conditioning cranked up a lot more to keep the sweating down. He was very warm in this uniform. He did the dishes from his last two meals, put them in the dishwasher and went into the library to look around.

Before long he was dusting shelves to clean the dust that had accumulated after the cleaning crew left. It also gave him a chance to sort and reacquaint himself with some of the hundreds of books there. He didn't mind, although he was somewhat disappointed that he had stained his apron. He stopped long enough to change it for a clean one and then he was back to the dusting and reorganization.

He caught himself looking in the mirror more and more as he went through the day. It was -- not disturbing, but unsettling -- to see how right these clothes looked and how well they went on him. He had not noticed it before, but the shape of his face and body, how well he moved made feminine garb look so right on him. He recalled college and thought about men who had proposition him thinking he was gay, now he had an explanation for it.

He wasn't posing or preening, but he was conscious of standing properly, taking small steps, trying to move with grace and poise through the day. He wanted to do the long-dead former owner of this uniform justice and compliment her. He wanted to look like a proper maid.

While he was in the library he found some books that he thought related to life in Victorian times. The Housewife's Guide to Everything, Servants and Maintaining Control in Your Household, A Housekeeper's Companion and others. He took those books down and set them on a reading table near a lamp to be studied at a later time.

As he kept cleaning, he began to spin a fantasy, about being a poor working girl, picked up off the street and taught how to be a proper maid of all work. It was her responsibility to keep the house neat and tidy, dusted and picked up. Her employer wasn't at home much, so she was trusted to live here by herself and maintain the place in her Master's absence.

A name, Mia, popped into her head. That was the name of a serving girl. She started referring to herself as Mia and with a feminine pronoun. It felt right for her to do so. The game of pretend became more real the longer she played it.

That night she had continued to do what Master Gerome had started, going through the attic and cataloguing all the items up there. Mia made sure to take down several more sets of uniforms for herself, picking all the best ones so that she had nice things to wear. She picked out two sets of uniforms for working upstairs, three sets for downstairs, and two more for kitchen duties. When Mia found uniforms for serving in the dining room, she picked out two of everything for that as well. She hung them all neatly in her closet after moving to one of the servant's chambers in the back of the house. It was small by Master Gerome’s standards since it contained two beds, dressers and nightstands.

She then picked out clothes for a lady friend of Master Gerome's and hung them neatly in a guest chamber’s closet and folded neatly away in the chest of drawers. She knew that it was one of her duties to take care of the wardrobe while she was the only one here, so every now and then she should take them out and air them.

Days drifted past in a wondrous world of make believe she’d created. There were occasions where she would have to let Master Gerome take care of some business detail or other. At his directions to his companies she started taking care of all the callers to the house. The Estate Agent would call with an appointment time when someone wanted to look over the property, and Mia would make sure to greet the Estate Agent and guests at the door and answer any questions they had. She made sure the place was clean and dusted, and would vacuum all the carpets every week.

When the landscapers came, Mia was a bit nervous going outside with them, but soon became comfortable with showing them where work needed to be done. She called to have groceries delivered, made all the meals and ate them as well.

It was not terribly strenuous for her. She enjoyed her work. It was fulfilling and she could revel at being able to see a concrete goal reached at the end of each day’s labor. She was exhausted every night when she went to sleep in her room sleeping more soundly than Master Gerome had for years. Each task accomplished left her glowing with satisfaction.

Four weeks after she pulled the uniforms down and started working in them, there was a visitor at the door. A young lady was waiting when Mia opened it.

"Good afternoon," Mia said with a curtsey. "May I help you?"

"Yes, I was sent here from the Temporary Domestics agency? Mr. Gerome Phillips needed a live-in maid temporarily? Am I too late?" She looked worried.

Mia smiled. "Please come in. I'm Mia Warner and no, you aren't too late for the position."

"I'm Angela Reynolds. No offense, but when you opened the door, I thought my job had been given away. I hope this isn't going to cause problems?"

Mia looked at her. "Mr. Gerome isn't here at the moment, and I've been here as a maid-of-all-work for a while. I certainly understand why he felt we should have two maids in the house, as big as it is. Please follow me." Mia closed the door behind her.

They went into what once had been the Drawing Room, just off the foyer it was a receiving room, similar to a parlor, but more public. This was where the family would receive their guests. As the ladies and gentlemen went their separate ways, the women would enter the drawing room. The "Withdrawing Room" was accessible through a small door in the back. The ladies would go there if they needed a few moments of privacy to gather their wits again, or to sniff at their smelling salts from being too tightly corseted.

Mia motioned for Angela ("Please call me Angie.") to take a seat on one of the divans in the Drawing Room. She took the opposite divan and started looking over Angie's résumé. She went on to look at the recommendations that were attached. Finally she looked at Angie and started the interview.

Mia had already decided to hire Angie. The résumé was good and the recommendations were even better. She was fully bonded through her agency and that would have included a criminal background check. Really for the work that needed to be done, a maid didn't need to be a rocket scientist.

Mia and Angie spent the time chatting about many things, life, her goals, what she could do and what she needed to learn. Angie seemed to be ready to buckle down and work as she should.

They spent some time discussing Angie's duties and her compensation. What it boiled down to was minimum wage for 40 hours, no overtime, but full compensation for medical, dental, vision, retirement fund and one day off a week. Uniforms would be provided and her term of employment was to be until the house was sold.

On the subject of uniforms, Angie asked "Forgive me for being blunt, but am I going to have to wear a uniform like that one? It looks like it is from the turn of the century."

Mia smiled. "It is. Mr. Gerome had found an extensive collection of servant's livery in one of the attics while he was sorting through things, and thought I should wear this one. It is mostly for pretend but also for a bit of Victorian charm when the house is shown to potential buyers. Someone mentioned that doing it might increase the value of the house, since it would serve as a reminder of the historic cache of owning this estate.

"I believe that I will recommend to Mr. Gerome that you also be given a uniform set like this so that you will fit in. It shouldn't be for very long. The house has been on the market for three months now, and there have been several people out to look at it, so there should be offers soon. Just think of this as a piece of costuming for a short period of time."

Angie was satisfied with that answer, Mia could tell by the smile on her face. "Mia, let me ask you this, why isn't Mr. Gerome interviewing me? Are you also the housekeeper?"

"Not exactly, I don’t hold the title of Housekeeper, but I am the senior maid. Mr. Gerome had mentioned a while back that he expected someone to come by, and told me that I could make the decision on whether or not to hire the person who came as I will be the one most closely working with that person. I like what I see and I will be recommending you be hired.

"Now, with that done, would you care to take a tour of the house?"

Angie and Mia spent the rest of the day going through the house. Since no one was actually living in most of the rooms, they only needed dusting and vacuuming. The rooms that they used required more through cleaning as a matter of course. The major work would be in the attic and in the basement which were both used as storage for more than the last hundred years.

Mia spoke. "My instructions are to keep this house in shape to be sold. We are to make it as clean as it is possible to be, to get the full resale value. I was informed that the house appraises for 13.5 million dollars along with the grounds and outbuildings. There are work crews that have been hired to get the outbuildings fixed and in top shape, but we are responsible for cleaning and maintaining inside this house, and probably in the future we will be overseeing the other houses cleaning on the property as well.

"The heavy cleaning was done in the first month of Mr. Gerome inheriting this house, and all we need really do is to maintain that level of cleanliness.

"Mr. Gerome travels all over for pleasure. As such, most of the dealings that we will have are with lawyers and other officers of his companies. I do get instructions from him via an encrypted email account, so I know the orders are actually coming from him. We have a top security setup so that I can also send him anything of a financial nature that comes here."

"So this is just a place to keep his stuff while he goes out and acts as a playboy?" was Angie's shrewd guess.

"I guess you could say that."

"So how is our pay taken care of? If Mr. Gerome isn't here to sign our checks, how do we get money for the various things we need?"

Mia thought quickly. "Before he left, Mr. Gerome made me a co-signer on an account that is for household expenses. A set budget is deposited into that account monthly. It’s enough to cover all the normal operating expenses and a bit more to take care of emergencies. I’m supposed to contact Mr. Gerome or his lawyer if I need more money for some reason. Our paychecks are included in that account, as well as checks to all the various people Mr. Gerome employs to maintain this place. All the household expenses come out of that account, including groceries."

Angie was nodding. "That makes sense. Do we get to use the house and cars and such as well?"

Mia smiled. "There are vehicles we are permitted to use for household chores. If you have your car, then it is yours to do with as you wish. I have a car of my own as well. I was told that I wasn't allowed to have parties here, but a few friends over occasionally for a night of being together was allowable. Mr. Gerome waggled his eyebrows at that, so I assume he was thinking about my sleeping with the delivery boy or something."

Angie giggled. "Okay then that sounds reasonable enough. Now, where’s my room?"

Mia smiled. "The servant's quarters are at the back of the house." She took Angie there to let her choose the room she wanted for her own.

There was enough room to allow for a fairly large staff. There were a total of 8 rooms for maids and kitchen staff some had a double bunk bed to sleep a total of four. Body servants naturally slept in a small alcove within the guests bedrooms. Mia showed her around, and expected Angie to pick one of the empty rooms, but instead, she sat down on the unoccupied bed in Mia's room.

"These are very nice. I'll make sure that I bring everything over tonight. Can you help me store things and move in here when I start bringing them in?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess I can. But are you sure you wouldn't you rather have your own room?"

Angie smiled. "Why? We’re the only people in the house, and I really don't like big empty places, I've seen too many horror movies. Besides, this way we will only need to tidy one room instead of two every day." She stopped and looked at Mia. "Do you have a problem with me staying here with you?"

"No, not a problem," Mia said.

Angie nodded. "Good. I'll leave my bank information with you so you can let the lawyers know and a direct deposit can be set up. I'll go get my things in the meantime."

Angie spent the next couple hours filling out the requisite employment paperwork to satisfy the lawyers and make everything legal. Mia would fax it all to the lawyers to have things set up for a new employee. Then copies would be made and the originals sent by messenger to the attorney’s office. Mia told Angie that she would contact Mr. Gerome and that he would probably have a personal contract drawn up for Angie to sign and to be put on file with the "legal eagles," so that everything was laid out plainly.

Mia offered the use of the household mini-van to bring all of Angie’s belongings back in one trip. Angie smiled and thanked her fairly bouncing out of the house with excitement.

Mia smiled as she went into the main study to contact the lawyer and set things up. She spent a while enumerating points in an employment contract that the lawyer would have to draw up and let the law office know that they would need to messenger it over to the house as soon as possible.

Once she got that done, she thought of the story she had just concocted on the spot, and then did a bit of work to flesh it out. She had to create an email account for herself as a maid and not as "Mr. Gerome." Finally she set up a bank account for household expenses. She then contacted the service and informed them that Angie was hired and that they would get their commissions.

Having finished up those chores, she went into her now shared room to make ready for her new roommate.

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

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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!

Mia is out shopping on her own. Really, how much trouble can one maid get into at a mall? Maid to be a Man? By Maid Joy

---

Chapter 3

She knew that she needed expert help in selecting clothing and jewelry for herself, so instead of heading to a small boutique or consignment shop, she decided to go to the mall.

Luckily there was a large mall nearby with large retail shops as well as the little stores that sold specialty things. So it was off to the mall for Mia.

As Mia entered, she realized that people were staring at her. Some were obvious and some were covert but the stares and whispers followed her progress to the main mall entrance as she moved quick as she could without running.

Until now, her preferred choice of clothes had been so right so normal. Now her cheeks pinked as she realized just how out of place a Victorian maid was in the modern world. She chose to make her way to one of the larger retail outlets. She would start by finding some clothing that was more appropriate.

Before she could reach the Women's department of the store, a sales woman at the cosmetics counter caught her attention and beckoned Mia over.

"Oh my dear, what a quaint costume! Are you going to a party tonight?"

Mia was given no time to answer as the sales lady went on. "You are in such good luck today. We are doing free make-overs and you know you will need a bit of something special for your party."

She led Mia over to a chair in front of several mirrors, chatting nonstop. Mia wasn't given much chance to respond as this lady kept talking to her. It was as though if Mia wasn't allowed to say anything, she would surely buy everything that was put in front of her.

Mia had never worn makeup in her life, so this was a totally new experience for her. The sales lady was a very good one. She knew not only the products she was selling, she knew how they were formulated and how it all worked together.

The sales lady finally introduced herself. Delores had flawless skin and her make up was subtle. She was a walking advertisement for Ladies Glow cosmetics. The first thing she did was pull a huge lighted magnifying glass over and begin examining Mia’s face.

"Oh dear! You really have been neglecting this skin! Have you been using regular soap on it? It will absolutely ruin your skin my dear! No, no this will never do! I can see your pores coarsening as we speak! The very first thing we must do is choose your cleansing routine!"

Everything Delores said ended in an audible exclamation. She asked Mia about what she did and where she worked. When she found out that Mia really was a maid she almost shrieked. "Those chemicals! The harsh detergents and cleansers you must have to use! No wonder your skin is in this shape!"

Mia had to assure her that she did take precautions like wearing rubber gloves and had shown no signs of have any trouble with allergic reactions.

The sales woman looked unconvinced. "My dear Mia, don’t you know those fumes reach your face? That’s how they damage you, it doesn’t have to be direct contact. Now tell me, what kind of skin and hair do you thing you have, Oily skin and hair or dry or both, what is your age, and have you ever had any kind of surgery on her face?

With the probing questions answered Delores went behind the counter and began lining up products.

"Make up remover, skin cleanser, toner, and a very gentle moisturizer. Now! I am going to give you a real treat! Before we begin putting much of anything on once a week you should use this!"

She added a facial steamer to the collection on the counter top and started in again. Use absolutely ONLY deionized distilled water in this!" She pulled out a bottle and placed a small amount in the bottom. "Just lean forward and place your face right here. There’s an automatic timer and it takes only a few minutes to open and refresh your pores allowing for a really deep cleansing." Once the gentle chime rang Mia was instructed to sit back and gently pat her face dry on a special pad that the company naturally sold. "It’s hypoallergenic and disposable so you never use the same one twice, so very good for your skin." Delores seemed to purr with pleasure at the very idea. "Ordinarily I would suggest at this point you use our wonderful hydrating cucumber and aloe gel masque of beauty but we don’t have time for that today. Just use it once a week after your facial for maximum results."

Step by step Mia was shown how to apply all the products to make her skin as smooth as possible. Delores was happy to tell her how to use them, and why it was so important to have a smooth surface to start with. "These products are used in the morning. Of course at night you will want a deeper moisturizer before bed. That’s when you use this one instead of that one! And naturally you’ll want to keep your eye area as smooth and wrinkle free as possible as long as possible so use this anti-aging eye serum last of all! With the steamer and this weekly masque of beauty you will be giving your skin a priceless gift.

"Your coloring is exquisite! I can tell you listen to all the warnings about staying out in the sun without proper protection. Our daytime moisturizer had an SPF of 15 to protect that lovely porcelain complexion of yours! And with your dramatic wavy dark hair and green eyes I bet all the boys have been chasing you since your got out of the crib!"

Mia blushed at the implication of the compliment and dropped her eyes.

Then they went to work with the makeup. First there was a foundation to match Mia's skin tone. Then she was shown how to apply it to her face. When Mia naturally started spreading it down her neck and under her chin, the saleslady made a point of correcting her. She told her that a foundation was supposed to be like a mask on the face, and that spreading it further would cause makeup to stain her collar. Just under the edge of the chin, and no further. That was why it was so very important to get as perfect a match as possible. "Mia my dear, it’s to enhance not to plaster over! You aren’t a wall in need of repair!"

"Now it’s time for some real fun!" Delores seemed to glow. "Of course you’ll need an every day, day time, evening and going hunting look, every girl does!" The eye shadow, the mascara, the eyeliner, the blush, the lipstick and lip liner, then eyebrows and pencils were all discussed at length and shown to Mia and then put on her. At first the change was so subtle that Mia could only tell there was a nicer look. If she hadn’t been watching she would never have known anything had happened.

"This basic day time look can then be enhanced if you are going out to lunch or shopping by adding this blush and a bit of eye shadow." Again the change was subtle but more noticeable, the lipstick actually showed on her lips with the slightest gloss shining in the light.

"Of course if you are out and decide to go to dinner you can add a bit more drama to the eyes, use some more mascara a deeper tone lipstick and voila!" This time the change was noticeable. Mia certainly didn’t look like a clown but there was a definite enhancement that made her look like a lovely stranger, someone Mia didn’t know at all.

"Finally, we darken this part of the shadowing, use this gold mascara just on the tips top and bottoms of your lashes and this deep red lacquer on your lips and girl you will get any man you set your sights on!" Soon the sales lady had Mia made up in an exotic style that would look very commanding and daring at a formal party of some sort.

Then all of that was stripped off, and Mia was allowed to put it on again and again, and again. With each repetition, applying and taking off the makeup, Mia became more proficient, and her confidence rose.

Mia had learned how to add to the makeup depending on the time of day, and how to match the makeup to the mood she wanted to project. Light colors and light browns for a more wholesome innocent look, dark smoky shades when she was feeling sexy and vixen like. Deep shades to make her eyes recede into her face when she wanted to project and air of mystery.

Three hours later, the sales lady pronounced her "as skilled as I can make you in the time we have."

If she wanted to be much better, practice would be the key, if she felt unsure or wanted to learn more styles they were offering an evening of pampering in two weeks. There would be seminars, a really lovely dinner, advice and more. Mia smiled and thanked the lady, and without a qualm purchased everything she had used. It even included the facial steamer and disposable makeup wipes. Mia also noticed that a book of makeup schemes and a video of how to "do even more with your makeup" was for sale on the stand behind the counter. She purchased them and reserved 2 spots for the seminar too. Hesitantly she asked Dolores for her opinion of a nice perfume. "Nothing too heavy, something, uh mild?"

Dolores smiled and nodded -- only too happy to add another sale to her tally for the day. After more discussion, they settled on a light floral scent that was a perfect compliment for Mia. It smelled like lilies and honeysuckles and was just marvelous in Mia's opinion. Dolores also put a few samples of other perfumes into the bag, "in case you want to try something different, for things like that hunting party we were talking about."

Blushing she thanked Delores gratefully and gave her an extra tip for all the time she spent with her. Mia understood the saleslady made part of her salary from commissions on cosmetics she sold. Having never bought makeup before, Mia had no idea what a "normal" price was, as a result she wasn't upset at the size of the bill.

As they said good-bye, Dolores took a look at Mia's hands and pronounced her nails "shameful." She then suggested that Mia go by the salon that was part of the store and have them take care of her hands and feet, and maybe do some electrolysis on the hair she had on her face.

Mia's heart nearly stopped at that, but the saleslady assured her that she had nothing to be ashamed about; many women had extra hair on their face. A quick zap with the electrical wires and it would never trouble her again

With makeup was more appropriate to a day of shopping, Mia continued on to the Women's Department to get some real girl clothes. There, once again, she was at the mercy of the salesladies who were all trying to help her pick colors with coordinated as well as matching clothing she would look good in.

Mia had left her apron at home, so she was just in the medium blue top and skirt with the white cuffs and collar. It didn't feel wrong; it was only that it stood out. So the salesladies she consulted with helped her select a long skirt and blouse set that weren't quite so antiquated. Of more modern cut and design they allowed her to feel comfortable without screaming "MAID" to everyone who saw her.

Three hours later, she felt as though she had tried on everything in the store that could possibly fit her, and she was ready to call it a day. Unfortunately she had several more places to go to.

But she was more comfortable now, in a nice skirt and blouse combination that was different than the uniform she had been wearing. The skirt was set off by tiny flowers scattered all over and the blouse had been matched to the pale yellow ones. As it was getting quite a bit warmer, it was important to be cool.

She had resisted the pressure to buy a swimsuit saying that she didn't have any place to wear it, and her employer probably wouldn't want her swimming in the family pool. The salesladies understood and stopped trying to get her into a bikini.

She did buy several outfits. They suggested she have a mix-and-match set of five skirts and eight blouses, which would allow her to have several sets of clothes. There were also accessories to be mixed and matched as well. All this meant that she had up to twenty different ways to combine and wear her selections. Rather reluctantly she added a light weight summer jacket and sundress to the pile as well as several proper "Sunday-go-to-meeting" outfits.

She got some nice underthings as well. This is where Mr. Gerome's grandmother's purchases came in handy. Mia was able to tell what brands would last quite a long time and was worth the money, and what items that looked "hot" would be lucky to last the season.

The salesladies were horrified to hear that she didn't have any bras or panties, just a corset and pantaloons. They were pretty insistent that she get good underthings. This meant that she had to strip down to her unmentionables and to be measured again.

The lady who was measuring her stopped for a second when she found that Mia was actually a boy. She looked up at Mia and then smiled and nodded. She moved the "package" aside and continued measuring, without making fuss at all.

Girdles were brought, some tight briefs that also padded out the hips and butt for her. The saleslady leaned over and whispered "It's okay. A number of our customers are like you, and we take good care of them. Your secret is safe with us. Just be careful when you tuck yourself back or you could really hurt yourself."

Mia wanted to faint. She was so ashamed to have been found out, for it to have been a sales person made it somehow worse and that the woman had touched her made it even worse. She was sure that later her secret would be shared. And then she would be the laughingstock of the store. She could never show her face here again.

She changed into her new panty and bra in the privacy of the changing room. What did she mean? People like me? There are others that like wearing these clothes? That like having skirts and silk blouses? Why haven't I ever heard of them before?

Grandmother had acted so differently toward him after that incident in his childhood. She kept looking at him and monitoring everything he did. She chose his clothes, his friends and is school activities. She was very strict them and she encouraged him to do things that "real" boys would do. Playing outside was natural, but he didn't like team sports. Football repelled him; he had no desire to "be mauled by brutes and thugs until my bones break." Doing things like playing tennis and golf were natural activities and grandmother approved. They were properly sports of the upper class. He didn't want to spend time in the woods camping, but was that because it was so far from everything that resembled civilization, or was it something else? Certainly he was by nature fastidious and his grandmother’s insistence on good grooming and cleanliness were also factors.

Mia carefully pulled the girdle panties up, tight against her. That didn't feel very right, her "package" was being crushed and it hurt. What did the nice sales woman say? Tuck myself back? What did she mean by that?

She reached down into the girdle and pushed herself so that her thing was pointing back, and she felt the testicles pop up and into some sort of compartment in her groin. This left a deflated sack that was just hanging down. It took some adjusting and finally it felt odd, but not uncomfortable anymore.

Mia was now totally confused. What she a she with extra parts, or was she a him with the wrong clothing on? Was she an aberrant or a pervert or an anomaly? It was all so very confusing and Mia really didn’t think the mall was the place for a deep soul searching session about whom and WHAT she was.

For now she would just continue to be Mia, the Canadian Head Maid on her day off.

Once she had something a bit less conspicuous and a bit more fashionable on, she continued her shopping spree through the mall. She took enough time after each store to go back to her car and deposit her new clothes and makeup, covering it with a blanket to not be such a tempting target to thieves.

Mia felt even lighter when she went back into the mall. She was just another girl going on a shopping trip, not someone that should be stared at because of her uniform. Granted she had insisted on the uniform herself, but it was still very conspicuous and really old fashioned.

She took her time actually wandering around and look in the windows. She found herself somewhat repelled by some of the boutique stores, but in others she found things that she really wanted to wear. From admiring to buying was just a short step.

There was a moment of panic when she tried to pay for her purchases in Victoria's Secret. She pulled out her bankcard and the sales person slid it through the cash register. When it came back "Denied," her heart stopped.

She grabbed her Blackberry out of her handbag and went to the bank's website. She found an Urgent Message on there addressed to Mr. Gerome.

Dear Mr. Gerome Phillips,

There have been a number of transactions on your account, none of them signed for by you. As such, we have suspended bankcard xxxx xxx xxxxx x7659 on your account until you manually authorize the purchases and continued activity.

This is a precaution to prevent fraud and to keep the service charges down on your account.

If you are aware of these charges and wish to reactivate the card, please go to this link and sign in with your user ID and password and security question, and follow the directions contained on that page.

Thank you for being customer of ours, we look forward to serving you in the future.

List of charges on this account:

Transaction	Amount
4588McyMkp	$725.90
4588McyWmns	$1358.90
4588McyShs	$550.88
3422HotTpc	$545.90
5569WldPr	$1287.19
8886ATM-4355	$200
5874Gap	$877.25

Mia recognized every charge on this list, and she had made them all. She quickly went to the link that the email had in it, and authorized the lot, and then turned off the "Shopper's Protection" for the day. She knew that the amount of purchases and the amount of money spent had triggered this freeze, and she really didn't want to have it happen again today.

The saleslady looked skeptical when she presented the same bankcard to pay for the three nightgown sets she had just tried on and wanted to purchase, but when the transaction finished without a hitch, the saleslady was all smiles again. "Anti-fraud measures gotcha, huh honey?" Mia smiled and nodded.

She took her bags and made her way to the car again, depositing them into the "trunk" which was up front, not in the back. I wonder if you call a storage space in a car in the front a Bonnet instead of a trunk? Not a boot, something very German I suppose. Who knows?

She sat in the car for a few moments and changed out of the vintage boots that she had been wearing until then and changed into a new set of sandals, a modest 1 inch heel and lots of strappy airy goodness. Her feet were so happy with her now.

The boots she’d found in Hot Topic were to die for. They had a nice selection of boots that looked just like they were out of the 1900's. Four inch solid chunk heels, all leather, with large brass buttons up the outside of the boot. There weren't as many as the work boots she had been wearing, and they were for show more than anything else, but they looked lovely and would go with the uniforms well.

She knew that she should call it a day and go home, but she wanted one item from the jewelry store. So she sighed deeply and went in again.

She had to look at the directory inside the mall entrance to find the place she wanted, Jewel Time. She headed down there fairly quickly hoping they had what she wanted.

When she walked into the store, she knew that she had made the right choice coming to this store instead of someplace else. She wanted a chatelaine watch to wear on her uniform as a broach instead of a necklace.

She couldn't resist looking at the other selections that were on display. There were some beautiful watches that she knew would be destroyed quickly given her job. So when she found the watch she wanted, she called a salesman over and they talked.

It turned out that the watch she wanted was not only a beautiful broach, but that it could be pulled down from the pin on the blouse, so that it was easier to see. In the process of pulling it down, that wound the watch. You couldn't overwind it since it had an automatic "clutch" mechanism to prevent the spring from being drawn too tightly. The pin was made in such a way that it might destroy a silk blouse, but the heavy material of her uniforms would be safe enough.

She paid the manufacturer's asking price for it willingly, knowing that it would last for many years unless an accident happened.

It wasn't until she passed by a Piercing Pagoda that she thought about having her ears pierced and getting a selection of earrings for herself. The thought was parent to the action and soon she sported a set of earrings in her lobes that were a match for her birthstone. She got the cleaning solution and the stuff to make sure she didn't get infected, and then bought another dozen pairs of earrings for changing out later.

While walking out, she finally spotted the salon that the Delores had mentioned so many hours ago. She went in and made an appointment to get some electrolysis done and while she was there, they talked her into a haircut and styling.

She had never really taken good care of her glossy dark hair, but she figured that they could help her out. It was another four months of growth that probably needed to be taken off. She had simply been putting it in a ponytail and making sure the cap she wore covered that up.

When the stylist started discussing styles and "processing" with her she vetoed most of what he suggested, to his frustration. She pointed out that her appearance was very important and it was not completely up to her how her hair was styled. She accepted that when it was down that it needed to frame her face, but when it was up, the hair needed to be off her neck and be able to either disappear under her cap or be complimented by the cap.

They taught her how to do a crown braid around her head and to finish it off so that it looked like a single continuous braid around her head. She then let him style her hair so that it would compliment her face, frame it just right and be very low maintenance. As her stylist Jack worked on her hair, a manicurist worked on her hands. They were soaked, the cuticles trimmed and her nails carefully shaped. An almost clear layer of nail polish with the slightest tinge of pink and her hands looked amazingly pretty. It had felt so good! She was in love and made a return appointment for two weeks for a "mani-pedi."

Finished in the spa, she noted that it had grown dark outside and decided that it was definitely past time to feed her body as she had fed her soul today. She was surprised the growling hadn't alerted the mall security guards.

Once she had a meal at the Red Lobster attached to the mall, she ordered a plate to go for Angie. She felt bad that she and Angie hadn't gone shopping together, but someone had to be available in case the house was being shown besides she was proud of all she had accomplished on her own.

Making it home quickly so the food wouldn’t be TOO cold Mia discovered Angie was waiting for her as she drove up.

Without hesitation Angie ran to the car and opened Mia’s door. "Mia are you ok? Did anything happen? Where have you been? It’s dark for heavens sakes!" Mia had never been this lovingly fussed at since Mr. Gerome had left his nanny Miss Ann and the nursery.

"Angie! Slow down! Goodness, I did leave you a note after all and I brought you back a nice lobster and scallop dinner to make amends since you didn’t come with me. I just really wanted to shop, you know?

"Shopping? You -- went shopping?" With every word Angie’s mouth opened wider. Her voice ran down but her mouth didn’t close.

Mia had to smile, it was the first time she’d ever seen Angie at a loss for words. "Yes, I did and I really need help getting all this in and opened and tags removed and shaken out and..."

It was Angie’s turn to smile, "Ok I get the picture, but if you hear my stomach,"

"I brought you dinner to apologize, and it’s getting cold. So please! Let’s get going."

Carefully Mia reached in and retrieved her purse and Angie’s dinner. Once both were safely deposited in the kitchen she went back out and popped the front trunk. Angie whistled.

"Where on earth did you get all the money to buy all this stuff? I recognize every name on every bag and as far as I know not one of them is having a 90% off sale!"

Mia’s brain went into overdrive. "Well, you know that attorney set up a bank account for me and deposited my paychecks for the last two months right? It turned out even with taxes to be quite a bundle. Did you know we’re supposed to work eight hours a day five days a week?

Mr. Gerome had been quite surprised to discover it. He’d never realized what the cost of employees was or that there were actual laws regarding how many hours in a week one could work and when overtime had to be paid. He’d almost gagged when he realized just how much Mia and Angie had been working and how much they were owed as a result. According to the attorney, an employee -- any employee was supposed to receive overtime. The one saving grace was the exemption for domestic workers who lived in. With the "girls" working from 8 am until 5 PM and then from 6 PM until 9 or 10 at night six days a week he would have been paying for a minimum of 72 hours a week each. If he’d had to pay over time for 32 hour a week that would have been a bundle in deed.

Fortunately the ladies in question had quite a bit of compensation to make up for the lack of cash. Still, he might have to think about a raise for Mia since she was doing much more than an ordinary maid would be doing.

Once Angie had been distracted by the thought of having a forty hour work week dinner, the clothes, makeup, and more had been brought in very quickly. Angie looked at Mia closely. "You look different Mia." She looked closer, "you’ve got on makeup! And your hair -- it looks styled and cute. Is that a manicure?"

"Yes and yes and yes so eat and let me tell you all about it."

While Angie ate, Mia started at the beginning of the trip and told every last detail including showing off everything she’d bought. The one thing she didn’t divulge was the cost.

Angie nearly choked on a scallop when Mia brought all the bottles and lotions and make up out of their bags.

"Mia, you really don’t need but about half that stuff. Even the high society lady I worked for last didn’t have that much stuff and she was twice your age! Some people should go to jail for robbery without a gun." Yet Angie couldn’t help look at the high-end cosmetics with envy. Her own meager supplies were Superstore discount discontinued items she had purchased slowly over time.

Mia looked at her blankly. "But Angie, you have to get all this stuff too. It’s part of our employment benefits. We have to look good just like the house. Tomorrow I’m supposed to take you in to see the same lady so she can give you the same make over. Then you get our hair taken care of, no matter what needs doing and manicures and pedicures the works!" Mia was breathless by the time she finished.

Angie on the other had looked like a child on Christmas morning, but there was a doubt a hesitation in her eyes. Mia could see her adding everything up in her head. Mia was afraid that she had exposed herself and kept showing things.

Then Angie spoke up, in a very concerned tone of voice. "Mia there’s got to be some kind of catch. No one hires a domestic, lets them live in, buys their uniforms and all the other things in our contracts and not expect something besides cleaning. I've never heard of any legitimate employer paying for all that plus giving free dental, medical and more. Has Mr. Gerome ever asked you to uh, well you know -- do something that you didn’t want to?"

It took Mia a few moments to understand just what Angie was trying to ask her. Once she did her eyes widened. "No Angie, I can promise you that Mr. Gerome has never asked me to do anything at all that wasn’t legal or that made me uncomfortable. He’s very nice but he really didn’t seem interested in me that way if you know what I mean? He said it was because I’d be showing the house and representing him so I had to look my best on those occasions. Well now you are too, so you get the same thing. But Angie..." Mia looked serious, "you buy your own off duty clothes." Then she burst in to a laugh that let Angie know she was playing.

"OK Miss Smarty pants now show me all your treasures! And you better make sure Mr. Gerome’s credit card is loaded up because I can think of a lot of things I need to look presentable on duty!" They smiled at each other and Mia began rummaging in the bags so she could continue with her tales of Delores, the clothes ladies and all the rest of the people she’d met that day.

"Seriously, about these cleansers, lotions, eye serum, facials and such Delores told me in confidence that the sooner you start taking care of your skin the longer you can look young and pretty."

Angie’s eyes widened, "Oh Mia, you are so innocent! Of course she told you that and anything else she could think of that would get you to buy more things. Did you ever leave the orphanage before you ran away? It amazes me how little you know about sales people. Still, getting to spend a hoard of money on all kinds of fun stuff..." Angie grinned at Mia like they were partners in something very shady and wiggled her eyebrows.

Mia couldn’t stop herself, her laugh rang out of her mouth and echoed in the large servant’s kitchen.

Finally she began again this time about her clothing choices. One by one her blouses and skirts came out. She seriously explained how each one could go with many others to give her more choices. Then she showed off her new bras, panties, hosiery, nightgowns and all the other little treasures a girl needs to have. The sales ladies were sure of it. Finally she showed off the accessories and the dress clothes she’d been talked into buying.

"Well Mia, I have to say this, for someone who’s never been shopping on the high end of the scale you did a really good job of picking out pricy but really well made items. Congratulations, you’re a natural born shopper." As Angie spoke she’d been helping to cut tags off all the items.

They got to the pretty Sunday clothes and they were more beautiful that the rest. Mia showed her how the jacket to the suit could also go with some of the skirts and a particular dress could be dressed up or down. Mia looked at her seriously and said "Angie, I went way overboard on my clothes and personal items. We do get a clothing allowance for lingerie but it isn’t very much... I am stone broke until I get paid again." She bit her lip and held her breath. Would Angie buy her story?

Mia's day started out so promising, so just what fly landed in her happy ointment? Maid to be a Man? Chapter 4 By Maid Joy

---

Mia and Angie cleaned up the mess the fashion show made in their room. Bags and tissue paper, boxes and tags were all combined into the smallest possible form and left near the indoor trashcan to be taken to the big cans tomorrow morning.

Angie looked truly happy helping Mia with putting away all the new clothes neatly. Mia was feeling a little guilty that she wasn't able to take Angie with her. But the chance of discovery with Angie in the same room with her was dangerous enough; it would have been even higher on a "mall crawl" like Angie seemed to want them to do.

"Angie, thanks so very much for the help tonight, and thank you for your suggestions. I don't have much experience in a mall down here."

"Oh Mia, that's why I wanted to help you. I know lots of places that are discount stores you aren't familiar with. I know that you aren't getting paid much here, and I had hoped to save you some money by going to a place like that. If you need a loan I can help you."

Mia was touched by Angie's offer. She couldn't tell her the truth. It would destroy their friendship and her new life. "It's OK Angie; fortunately I really don't need any money until pay day. Honestly. The only expenses were for casual clothes, and that's covered now by what I already had in the bank. I really don't need anything else that isn't covered by the budget. It will be ok, I promise."

They both finished their nightly grooming routines. Mia had to get some help from Angie since this was still very new to her. She got the lotions and exfoliants mixed up and finally asked for some assistance sorting the mess out. Angie was only too happy to help.

Eyebrow plucking done, masque on and off, deep moisturizer gently patted on, Mia was finally able to get into bed.

At about 3AM, Mia got quietly out of bed and went in to check on Mr. Gerome's email to see what he needed to take care of.

It was weird to sit in the darkness and look at a laptop screen with all this gook from the nighttime moisturizer on his face. He needed to become accustomed to a lot of things while playing this role.

It was a role to him. He knew that he wasn't really a servant in his own home, but it was exciting to see things from a perspective that he would never have experienced otherwise. He felt like Robin Masters in Magnum P.I. and he, frankly, loved the play-acting. It afforded him an opportunity to see how the remnants of Grandmother's empire handled things in the immediate absence of a person to tell them to wipe their asses.

The netbook finally bleeped telling Gerome that it had found the Internet and his email accounts. He went through them quickly deleting the spam, reducing the size of his inbox to 35 unread messages from 210. It's incredible the amount of people who come crawling out of the woodwork when you have some money.

Fifteen of the emails were simply something needing his "rubberstamp" to approve actions that the managers and Presidents needed take to keep the money rolling in. And to prove they are worth the money they get paid. Many of the emails were transcripts of different high-level meetings that he had to know about. He was able to speed-read through those without much trouble, imagining the people in his head.

Soon he was current on the major points of the businesses. He was well trained in what he needed to know about the businesses Grandmother had left him. He then turned his attention to the covert information being gathered for him.

He saw that, for now, the CEOs and Presidents were playing it straight. They were refraining from the temptation to engage in various versions of thievery or "five fingered discounts." The reports allowed him to relax and stop worrying until later, when it would be time to do it again.

He looked at the personal information his investigators had dug up on other key people in his employ, the people handling the money at various levels of the businesses. His accountant had some dirt in his past. It was a nice having the information in has possession. It allowed him to understand why Grandmother kept the man on such a short leash, and why he was so good at what he did.

Apparently spending 50 months in Danbury Minimum Security Prison did wonders for his attitude and allowed him the tools and the canniness he needed to actually find the trails of double entry bookkeeping, hard to spot but so necessary. It also made certain that he was willing to be a loyal drone since the questionable material that had been gathered was enough to put him away for much longer if it were discovered.

Well, Grandmother always said the best person to guard your money was a reformed thief, I guess this just proves it. The agreement with the accountant with grandmother was simple, for every $1000 of graft or theft he found in the various books, the accountant got a "bonus" of $100 over and above his normal salary. Gerome had absolutely no problem giving him the bonus or desire to change the agreement. It ensured that he would continue looking at the books with a microscope.

You had to love the classic "carrot and stick" approach to management. Give them what they want up front, and they will not nibble from the back. Just make sure that if they do try anything there's a HUGE trap that will kill them if they try and ensure that they see it. The Bag might have been a bitch, but she was a canny businesswoman.

He then turned his attention to the reports from the Estate Agent and his lawyer. The Agent reported no successful bids in the range he had set for the house. Gerome grimaced and accepted that. It just meant that the house would have to be on the market longer. He'd have to keep up appearances longer. The Agent was hopeful that the new set of prospects that were coming out today would be more willing to buy. The Agent further noted that the Asian corporate types tended to have more free cash as well as reasons for wanting to buy in America. Gerome approved her bringing them out to the house and showing them around.

His lawyer was another matter totally. Gerome knew that sleaze dripped off him like slugs leaving a slime trail. He was amazing navigating the corporate world and avoiding pitfalls that had destroyed several of his predecessors, The Bag kept this one around because of his survival skills. She felt if he could survive this long in a corporate shark tank he would protect her interests just as fervently as he protected his own.

Gerome hadn't missed the sleazy "I think we are going to be close" line he laid on Mia. It still made him shudder. He doubted that the ass would do anything directly like rape or trying to force her to sexually service him, but it was possible that he would try to do something with his "power" over her, especially since Mia was an alien with fake papers now.

Gerome thought it might be a good idea to find out just how the slimy piece of snot had come by all those documents so quickly. He sent a note off to his investigators.

He also went to the Canadian Government website and applied for a Social Insurance Number as Mia. She would need to have it if she was to prove she was a Canadian citizen. A few minutes later, he had her SIN (653 481 602), and a promise that she would get the SIN card in the mail.

Now she was a real person according to the Canadian government, he could see just how many of these documents presented to Mia were genuine and how many were fake.

Getting another two hours of sleep after her "Midnight Excursion", Mia got up early and washed the goop off her face. She did have to admit that it felt nice and made her skin feel tighter and smoother.

She took one of the exfoliating pads and scrubbed her face hard, making sure to do a good job on the "beard areas." She didn't have much of one. The hormones that were supposed to hit in puberty just hadn't really, Thankfully her body wasn't nearly as hairy as it could or should be as a result. So using one of the products hawked for removing leg hair seemed to help retard the growth of hair on her face nicely.

Then she started on her makeup. That's when she realized that it really HURT to put makeup on a raw face. REALLY hurt. She resolved never do that again.

She went for a light "workday" look, just some mascara in brown, a bit of eyeliner, a light foundation and lipstick in a nice peach. That was all that she would need today, if it came off it would be a quick fix since the point was to look like she wasn't wearing anything. She could always put more on later.

She got into her day uniform, corset - the works. It felt good to be dressed "properly" again. Next she checked the household email account to see if there was anything that she needed to know.

Normally at this point, there might be a reminder on the calendar for Mr. Gerome, but most often it was junk. Today there was a note from the Estate Agent that Mr. Gerome had hired.

In essence it said that she would be coming out with a set of new prospects and that they would be there at 10 AM and would be expected to stay until about 2 or 3 PM.

This changed Mia's plans for the day radically. She would have to do a quick tour of the house to make sure that it was visitor ready, then she needed to prepare a light lunch for them.

She woke Angie and said, "I'm sorry hon, I'm not going to be able to take you to the mall today. You'll have to go yourself. There's a group coming to look at everything and I have a lot of work to do."

Angie, to her credit, came awake quickly. "Mia, I'll take a different day off and help out. I can clean up ahead of you and the tour. It won't take anything for me to do it."

Mia smiled at her willingness. "Angie, you haven't had a day off in forever. You need today for yourself. The best help you can give me is to get this room ready for them to come through. I left a mess in the bathroom, and I don't have time to fix it. I need to do a quick walk through. Go to the Mall and tell Delores that I said 'hi'." She handed Angie a credit card. "This is the card I used yesterday and it will be all right if you charge things on it. Your personal clothes, however, you have to buy on your own. So make sure you take your purse too."

She glanced at the new chatelaine watch she got. "I've gotta get moving. Enjoy yourself honey." She gave Angie a quick peck on the cheek and took off.

Mia went through the kitchen like a "dose of salts" as grandmother would say. A Mia-shaped tornado that grabbed some "breakfast bars" shoving them into her skirt pockets as she raced to inspect the rest of the house. She went through each bedroom on the second floor to make sure they looked the best they could while quickly nibbling through the first one.

They had no guests, so none of these rooms had been used. They were inspection ready. Mia checked every bathroom and the suites as well, just to make sure. She went through the public areas of the house as well.

In quick order, Mia cleared them. She checked the fresh flowers and discarded the dead blooms. At 9:57 AM Mia was waiting beside the door to greet the new guests. There was a beautiful crystal pitcher of ice water and tumblers ready on a sterling silver tray.

The doorbell chimed three lovely notes and Mia opened the door and curtsied. "Welcome to the Bellwether Mansion. Won't you please come in?"

She stepped back, opening the door wider as she did.

Since the couple viewing the place were Asian she also bowed from the waist until her back was level to the floor, but rose quickly from the position.

The tour was long and thorough, covering every room, closet and staircase of the house. They even wanted to see the attics, the cellars, and servant's quarters. Mia was glad the rooms had been cleaned yesterday and silently thanked Angie for straightening their bedroom and bathroom.

The final stop on the tour was the housekeeper's office. There Mia brought refreshments as requested and bowed again. She would return when called by the realtor.

She stepped into the kitchen area and finished making several sandwiches for the guests, noting they had toured the house through lunch. Cucumber and Watercress, seared ahi tuna, imported prosciutto with fresh Buffalo Mozzarella and fresh basil were carefully plated and placed on the heavy silver serving tray. She added a selection of crudités. She would bring the tea service next. She picked up the tray and made her way back to the Housekeeper's office.

Once there, she politely interrupted their conference with a tap at the door. As soon as they stopped talking, Mia entered silently and pulled out a small tray table setting the tray on it. Bowing from the waist she said softly "Please accept this poor offering of humble food. I shall return with tea shortly. She brought a lovely silver service with English style tea and exquisite bone china. Bowing again she retreated to a corner waiting in case of need.

She was promptly ignored. One of the Asians spoke. "As I said, it is possible our information is not in balance. There is perhaps a reason that the property records for this house and grounds are taxed at eleven million dollars, not thirteen and a half? It distresses me that we are unable to offer more than at this time."

The agent looked pensive. "I am devastated that this is the case, however there are two issues here perhaps worthy of your consideration. The taxes are not always up to date for a correct evaluation. The data I have here will show that for a property of this size in any comparable market the thirteen point five million dollars is actually a conservative price. Additionally that does not take in updated and upgraded design that was just completed last month. It was designed to enhance the value of the historic character of the house and grounds while bringing it into the future with the most modern of conveniences by the current owner. You are not going to have do anything but bring your personal effects when you move in."

"The consortium I represent has decided to turn this property into a retreat for travelers. I believe you call it a 'bed and breakfast', although we plan to make it much more than that. This is why we don't need all of the extra houses and outbuildings, and we plan on having them torn down costing a great deal of time and expense. In addition to that, this property has been on the market for how long? About four months? And there are still some repairs to be done." He paused and took a mouthful of one of the sandwiches. Once he finished chewing and swallowing, he looked at his partner and said something in Japanese.

The other responded and they had a short conversation between the two of them. Mia was able to catch something about a teahouse or spa, and serving girls, but most of their speech was too rapid for her to understand.

When they finished speaking, the first gentleman turned back to the Estate Agent and said, "Yes, we have decided to place an offer of 11 million dollars for the entire property. This is a firm offer and you can take it to the owner."

The agent nodded her head. "Very well, I shall start the paperwork in my office and transmit the offer to the owner." They all stood, the Agent grabbing a sandwich as well. They turned to Mia.

She bowed to the Japanese gentlemen and thanked them for coming. They gave a short bow back to her, acknowledging her, but not according her any higher courtesy than any servant had. Mia then curtseyed to the Agent and led them all back to the door.

She curtseyed and bowed again and shut the door behind them. Eleven Million for all this property? What do they want? There's more here in HISTORY than that. Mia had a hard time keeping her temper at this moment.

I'm not being greedy here, and I'm not trying to get the absolute top of the market either. I want to get a fair price for my home. I've lived here nearly all my life, and I don't want it to become some developer's dream, tearing it down and making all kinds of changes. A SPA? Who do they think they are -- John Harvey Kellogg? Mia was angrier at the implication that all she had liked about this place would be destroyed by some well-meaning but idiotic foreign businessmen.

Then she stopped while walking past the room Grandmother used to use as her sitting room. She looked into the depths of that room and could almost see Grandmother sitting there.

Am I pissed because of what they could do, or am I pissed because this sale would end the greater part of my life? I mean, after all, while she was strict and sometimes abusive, she did try to do what she thought was best for me. She could have sent me to a boarding school instead of raising me herself after my parents died. She didn't have to keep me here.

Mia had to really think about that. She went in to the room and sat in the chair she used to sit in to listen to Grandmother's lecture for the day.

She'd probably have a hissy fit to see me dressed like this. Not only does it say that I'm a servant, one of the lowest servants at that, but she would faint at my being dressed up as a girl. Come to think of it, why AM I in a dress? She had no real answer to give.

At first, it had been fun playing dress up. While most of Gerome's childhood had been lessons and study, he had tried to play, not always successfully. Instead, he learned to discipline himself to do what was needed, when it was needed.

Was he a spoiled rich-kid? He didn't think so. He didn't have the normal distractions and addictions of his class. Certainly nothing to rival the déclassé excess of "Overboard" or "Spoiled Rich Kids." He didn't excessively shop for frivolities, didn't buy a new sports car and abandon it when it ran out of gas. But he didn't have any wants like that either.

Gerome understood how much things cost thanks to grandmother, and while he didn't penny pinch, he did keep look for quality bargains when it was time to spend. The label wasn't important, just how well it was made and how long it would last. That's why he still had his beat-up car, those Beetles just didn't quit.

But there were large parts of day-to-day living that he just didn't get. He understood more now since playing Mia than he had before. Things like scheduling time, actually doing physical work and how exhausted that makes you at the end of the day were all new to him.

He supposed that if he'd gotten a job at a fast food joint and he would have received the same education, but the dressing up was fun too. And truthfully it did feel right. Even though the clothes were heavy and warm, he liked the freedom a skirt gave him. It felt nice to have a petticoat brushing against his legs. Hearing it swish when he moved sounded right.

He wasn't stupid, just sheltered. He was learning that there was a segment of the population that got sexual satisfaction from being in another sex's clothing, but that wasn't him. It wasn't a sexual arousal but a feeling of rightness.

Did that mean he was really a girl instead? Would he go all the way and become a woman? He was sure that he was definitely unsure. That might be and option years down the road. Contemplating it while going to the kitchen to have some tea he decided there was no way he was interested in that now.

Truth be told, he liked being Mia. It wasn't just the clothing, although that was a nice part of it. It wasn't simply that he was working with his hands and actually accomplishing something, although that did give him a lot of satisfaction.

The expectations of him were not that high. That was a huge part of the whole package. The clothing, the working and seeing an accomplishment and now the fact that expectations were non-existent all combined to make him really, really happy.

His Grandmother had such high expectations for him that it hurt. He seemed to never be able to meet them and he felt her contempt ever time she looked at him. He hadn't realized yet that no one could have matched her expectations because they always increased. She had never truly beaten him, but in some ways that might have been better.

Now, the only expectations were that the bathrooms were clean. He had no one to impress, no one that was standing over him with a switch, and no one that was criticizing him while they watched him fail. Honestly, the relief was something he couldn't even express.

As he'd been trained, he grabbed a notepad and pen. He started making notes and thinking aloud. What he needed to do urgently was to decide for himself just what the hell he wanted.

He started with "Where do I want to be ten years from now?" Nothing came to mind, no goals no desires. It wasn't that he wasn't motivated; it was simply that aside from maintaining the money and the businesses, he knew nothing else to do. He had the money to go anywhere and do anything, and money could buy him time. Not having to live on Mia's earnings certainly helped.

Since he didn't have to get his "daily bread" by the sweat of his brow, he could actually do anything anyplace. He realized that he was incredibly lucky. What he did while pretending to be Mia was fine, and nothing else really needed to change. Truthfully, Mia and Angie could both stop working completely for a month or more, and there probably wouldn't be any visible difference, except for the dust.

Should he quit being Mia the Maid? Perhaps he could go on to become Mia the Businesswoman. Traveling around the country, using the knowledge that he had to buy and sell companies and just make more money. That could be a possibility later.

He looked over the page of notes that he had taken and decided that it was useless to try to make plans until he decided if he wanted to continue being Mia or not. He was happy as Mia, but there was nothing really preventing him from being just as happy as Gerome.

And there was always the final dictum of grandmother, heirs. Heirs to keep the money together and grow it even more. Children, don't have too many and when you married not too many living relatives for your spouse either. Gerome knew one thing for sure, THAT he was something he definitely wasn't ready for.

More and more routine around Mia. But new things come into her happy world to impinge on her life. Maid to be a Man? By Maid Joy

---

Mia kept working on the house, even though it was still clean. The problems she had been contemplating over the last few days didn't go away and they didn't suddenly give her answers that she was looking for. Whenever her mind wasn't occupied while doing her chores, she turned over the whole tangled mess of questions, and none of them had any answers.

Questions kept coming at her no matter where she turned, questions about herself, the house, her future and more wouldn’t stop spinning in her brain.

She decided simply to start from the beginning. She seriously considered the question of "will I remain as Mia?"

The immediate answer, the one deep in her heart was "yes”. She wanted to be Mia and she enjoyed being Mia. Whenever she thought about plans and the future as Gerome, she got lost. She had no idea about what Gerome was going to do with his life and so she couldn’t make plans for the future.

It was possible that she could live simply while having as much money as he did. Mia remembered a tale about a lady in the 40’s who had a multi-million dollar empire that she had built during the Depression while living on the streets as a bag lady. While the living simply was an attraction (as well as the multi-million part) Gerome really didn’t want to be homeless to do it.

The situation called for skills that Gerome didn’t possess, good middle class values and an eye toward cost and frugality that he had never had to develop before. He could learn these things, and he could get help with them from others. His greatest fear was being exposed, or that the people around him would call him a fraud for living in a style that was unnecessary to them.

Mia gave him options that Gerome just didn’t have. Mia was an immigrant, she was a woman, and she was from the middle lower class or the lowest middle class social strata as well as being forced by circumstance to live frugally. Mia didn’t have to pretend to be poor, she was. Domestics didn’t make a whole lot of money in the first place, and she was lucky to find a job as wonderful as the one she had.

When she replaced Gerome with Mia, when making plans for the future, things got a lot easier. It wasn’t that Gerome had more confusing responsibilities, but more that he had too many options, and they collided with each other and made things worse.

Mia in comparison was simple. Her life consisted of cleaning and doing it well. Right now she wasn’t under a manager’s thumb, but that could change quickly if she wasn’t careful.

Should she continue to live a lie? Keeping the lawyer and other such people who might have the power to hurt her was simple prudence, but keeping this secret from Angie might hurt their relationship in the long run. She didn’t want to keep lying to Angie, and she truly wanted to tell her everything, but there was the “unknown” fear factor of “will Angie be pissed at the deception?” Gerome didn’t want to contemplate it.

Then there was the whole Gerome/Mia dichotomy. She hadn’t missed how often she would think of Gerome as a separate person and change her pronouns when thinking about the other. It was a whole mindset and she was worried that she might go crazy eventually trying to be two people at one time. Maybe she was developing a “split personality”.

The next question naturally was, should I keep the house. Yes it was a bear and it had all kinds of upkeep that went with a house of this size. She would have to hire more people to help her and Angie. Two girls alone couldn’t do everything that was necessary to maintain the house and grounds.

But most of my life has been spent here. I know this place and I know there is a lot of tradition here. Just letting someone else have it to destroy turns my stomach and I want to throw up.

If the house was staying in Gerome’s hands, it would have to be easier to maintain. A staff of some sort was going to have to be hired. Despite all those Maid stories on the Internet, one or two people alone couldn’t maintain a house this size by themselves.

She could hire a service to come in to do the grounds, cutting the grass and trimming the hedges and so on, that wouldn’t be too hard. She would have to turn the construction crews lose on the outbuildings, just to get them back into “working” order or safely remove. There were also the dilapidated “homes” on the grounds as well. Sometime in the past, one of Gerome’s ancestors had decided that putting the servant’s families in nice places to live would be to their advantage, so there was a little “servant’s village” about a half a mile away on the grounds. It wasn’t much better than the tract housing that people like DuPont and the construction company of Hoover Dam had put up, but it kept the people who actually did the work close.

There were also “rustic cabins” that could be recovered. Each was isolated somewhat and dotted around the property. They were there for guests who didn’t want to stay in the main house, but who still wanted to come to the hunting parties or the get-togethers. Something would have to be done with them as well.

Mia realized that she was done with her chores for the day, two hours early. She decided to take a survey of the rest of the land.

Quickly writing a note for Angie, she left it under a magnet on the fridge, and went to their room to change. She had a couple skirts that would match the blouse she was wearing, but that didn’t come down to her ankles. She changed clothes and went out to the garage.

Mia remembered that there was an ATV in one section, used mostly for dragging debris to a fire pit for burring, and it would suit her purposes completely. She checked it over, making sure all the fluids were topped off and it had enough gas in it, and she started it up.

She shut off the ATV when she realized that she had no clue where all the buildings were, so she went in to get the surveyor’s map of the grounds. With that in hand, she started going around to all the buildings on the property. Yes, having your own dairy and stable was interesting and added to the charm of the whole estate, but fully built homes would ultimately be more profitable than a building that was, in essence, eye candy.

It was several hours later when Mia finally got back to the main house. What she had discovered was intriguing.

The “servant’s village” was ready for occupation right now. All the houses were in top order and had been recently lived in. When she discovered that she mentally kicked herself for being silly. Of course the homes would have been lived in, the staff had to have someplace to live while they were taking care of Grandma. So naturally, the best place for them was the village, at least for those with families.

The other 12 homes were in sad shape. They were run down, and it would require major overhauls to make them someplace to live in. Several of them had wildlife living in them. They’d have to vacate the premises. Still others had flora growing in places they shouldn’t be, like gutters and rooftops for some trees, broken windows in others. One had some sort of fast growing plant of tree-like consistency that had taken over half the porch, breaking it into pieces.

One building was totally ruined, and had been long before the others had stopped seeing use. It was ruins along one pathway from one cabin to the next. On the map it had been listed as “structure ruins”, but nothing else had been noted. She could tell that it had once been a nice home, a bit more modern than the “rustic cabins” but not as modern as the village buildings. At some point it had just been abandoned.

Well, I should probably get in touch with the contractors and have them come out and look at all this work. They might be able to get it all back together they’d been working on the house and it was fine. Besides, I have to let those crew people who were interested know that we are getting ready to put the tools up on eBay.

As was their routine now, Angie and Mia did their catching up over dinner, made by Angie this night. Mia was very grateful to her doing the dinner all alone because Mia was simply too tired to come home and make dinner too. So Mia would do the dishes and let Angie sit.

They spent the rest of the evening talking about things. Angie commented on the short skirt, and Mia told her why.

“Those cabins are so interesting, it’s a shame that they are just falling into ruin like that,” Mia lamented.

Angie nodded. “I think I’d like to see them at some point.”

“Well, we could go out tomorrow and take another look. I need to get photographs for Mr. Gerome anyhow. I don’t think the manor will fall apart if we don’t clean it one day.”

Angie looked a bit concerned. “Are there any scheduled showings for tomorrow?”

Mia thought about it. “Not that I’m aware of, but the estate agent might get a wild hair or someone might want to come back. I can send her an email so she knows where we are and that we won’t be available to show the house tomorrow. That should give her enough warning that she can reschedule things if necessary.”

“Sounds like a plan to me.”

No sooner plotted than done. They dropped a note to the Estate Agent and the next morning, both got into casual clothing to look at the outbuildings again. Mia grabbed a good digital video camera and started taking movies with it. From that, she could take screen captures when she needed a picture.

They went through every building in the servant’s village, then through all the extra outbuildings like the stable and the workshops. They piled on the ATV and Mia drove them both to all the rustic cabins on the grounds. At each one they took the time to film the conditions of the houses, inside and out.

In one they had a bit of a surprise. Apparently, someone had been into some kinky stuff. They found leather and rubber “toys” laid out on a bench near a window, ready for use. There was a large cross of some sort on one wall, and restraint points on the bed. Or at least that was what they could puzzle out from the ruins of what was left. The rubber toys were mostly intact, but the cross had whatever padding on it rotted away, and the steel frame of the bed still had rings at all four corners that could serve no purpose except to chain someone down.

They had giggle fits over this room.

Mia was thorough and took video of everything anyhow, no matter how embarrassing to her family, but it was still ridiculously embarrassing.

The sun was setting when they finally got back to the big house. Being mutually exhausted, they agreed to have pizza for dinner. Neither had much energy left, and it was all that Mia could do to pull the .avi files off the camera and onto the computer they used.

A couple more days of work and they had all the movies edited and screen captures were done. She compiled the information, put it up on an internet page, and sent out some queries for bids from contractors.

“Mia, are you sure you should do that? I mean, Mr. Biggs was pretty insistent about the hiring of other staff. Maybe you should check with him first?”

Mia thought about it. “I believe that I can solicit bids without committing to anything. I just want to find out how much this will cost so I can present an accurate estimate to Mr. Gerome.”

Angie nodded. “Okay, if you are sure. I just wonder what they will think about the playroom.”

Mia got an idea. “Well,” she said archly, “we could refurbish that and try it out…”

Angie’s eyes got very wide and Mia wondered if she had gone over the line. “Um... no thanks. I’m not that kind of girl.”

Mia was about to apologize to her, but then she saw the twinkle in Angie’s eye. “Oh, darn!” she pretended to pout. “I need to practice my skills.”

“Well,” Angie considered, “we could buy you a slave to wail away on if you really want. I might have enough money, and it could be your Christmas present for the next five years or so…”

Mia dissolved into giggles at that point. She just couldn’t keep a straight face any longer. The thought of some girl or boy with a big red ribbon and bow tied around their neck just made her dissolve into laughter. She couldn’t imagine that it would be attractive to anyone.

But she supposed that someone must find it titillating, or it wouldn’t still be around.

Work around the estate kept them both busy for the rest of the month. There still weren’t any serious offers on the house, so Mr. Gerome had to relist it with the estate agent. Mia thought with the amount of money the woman would make if it sold, she would work a lot harder in selling the place.

The construction bids came in and while they seemed reasonable, it would take tens of thousands of dollars to refurbish all the cabins too. Mia looked through everything and sent it all off to Mr. Gerome with her recommendation as to whom to hire.

She CCed the Estate Agent and the lawyer so they knew that she needed to hire a crew or two to fix those cabins. She knew that it would be some time before Mr. Gerome got back to it.

Two days later, she got a call from Mr. Biggs.

“Bellweather Mansion, this is Mia speaking. How may I be of service today?”

“Mia, this is Ricky Biggs. I’ve made arrangements with Mr. Gerome to have a business party out there. I have about fifty guests coming and they all will be spending the day there.”

“Mr. Biggs, that’s wonderful, but I’ll have to clear this with Mr. Gerome first.”

“Oh, no need to do that. I have a letter here that I got from Mr. Gerome saying that I could have the party there. I’ll get someone to send it over to you. For now, I’ve hired a caterer and some others to help with the party and we are going to have it in two weeks. I thought I would let you know these people are going to be descending on the house.”

Mia knew that he was lying, but decided to give him plenty of rope. “Very well, Mr. Biggs. I’ll look forward to the authorization letter. Meanwhile are any of your guests going to be staying over? Should I have bedrooms prepared?”

“I’m not sure if they are planning on spending the night, but definitely have the rooms ready, I’m sure some of the guests will be using them.” Mia could almost hear the smirk in his voice.

“Thank you Mr. Biggs.”

“Thank you Mia. Maybe we could talk after the party too.”

Mia tried to make sure her revulsion wouldn’t be heard over the phone. “If all we do is talk, sir, I don’t see any problem. If there is anything else, I don’t think it would be possible, sir. Goodbye.”

She hung up the phone and thought about what a good Maid would do in this situation. They would probably check with their employer despite what Mr. Biggs said just to make sure.

So she hurried to the computer that she and Angie used and looked into Mr. Gerome’s email account. Of course there were no emails from Mr. Biggs about wanting to use the house for a party. So she signed out, cleared the browser history to be safe, and got back to work.

But she kept thinking about what to do now. Should Mr. Gerome discover the lie and the use of his property without permission, or should she just let Mr. Biggs do what he wanted and allow him to hang himself for later?

The latter seemed to be the safer course of action.

Soon the front door chimed and Mia went to answer it. As expected, there was a messenger with a letter for Mia from Mr. Biggs. She signed for it, tipped the boy and took it inside to read.

It didn’t take long to read the letter. And there it was, signed in Mr. Gerome’s own hand, permission to let Mr. Biggs have his party there and instructions to treat him as though he were the property owner for the weekend.

Alarm bells were going off all over Mia’s head. First off, the signature was a forgery. She knew it because she knew that Mr. Gerome wouldn’t sign anything like that. So if he would forge Mr. Gerome’s name to something like this, what else could he be signing Mr. Gerome’s name to?

She put the letter in Mr. Gerome’s desk and resumed her work. She could think while cleaning.

Later that evening, she informed Angie about the upcoming party. They both agreed to give the bedrooms a more thorough going-over in the next week to make sure they were up to standards when the guests showed up.

The days slipped past and Mia still couldn’t decide what to do. Since Mr. Gerome wasn’t stopping anything, the day for the party came even closer. The caterer and his staff showed up and started to prepare things for the party, including a fifty-bottle wet bar. Mr. Biggs showed up finally and started talking to the caterer about possibly being in uniform like Angie and Mia. He called Mia over and verified that they had period clothing available for everyone, and ordered her to get it all out.

Mia and Angie spent a day fitting and altering the vintage clothing for the people who would be serving at the party. Angie and Mia both were asked if they could stay out of the way of the caterer’s staff, since they had worked together for a long time and knew what needed to be done. Mia took some umbrage at this, but decided to let this slide.

So Mia and Angie went through the rooms again, making sure it was all up to standard and doing any last minute touch-ups.

That is how Mr. Biggs found them.

“Mia, Alice, why aren’t you guys down at the party? I specifically wanted you there to help with the guests.”

“Mr. Biggs, we were asked to stay out of the way.”

“Well, you can still answer the door and take the coats.”

“Yessir.”

Soon Mia was at the front door greeting guests as they came in, and shuttling coats and bags to Angie who took over the Withdrawing Room to house them all. The guests were all over the house, drinking, and laughing.

A man had set up in the back yard with a sound system and was now playing music for anyone who wanted to come and listen. Once everyone had arrived, Mia and Angie were circulating and directing people around the house, showing them where bathrooms were and where to go to sit for some peace and quiet.

A couple people disappeared into the bedrooms as the hour got later, and Mia figured that they were probably making a mess of the beds. As she saw some of them reappear at the party, she and Angie went around to the rooms to see which needed to be cleaned. When they found one, they locked the door to that room so no one else could use it.

From overheard snatches of conversation, this was Mr. Biggs’ client list. He was entertaining them here in an attempt to impress them with his contacts. Most of these people were mid-level business people, some higher ups, but no board members or CEOs. He was apparently hoping that they would assume this place was his and be impressed with his savior-faire. Mia knew it was fake, but apparently, none of the guests did.

As the night wound down, it was apparently a success for Mr. Biggs. His clients were impressed, he made a few deals, the hookers were happy with the money they made, and the caterer was apparently happy with the money he made.

There were a couple people who were too drunk to drive, so they were escorted to a room and tucked in for the night. Mia and Angie just collapsed in their beds, after making sure the doors between them and the guests were locked tight. At least the Caterer had said he would send some people over to help clean up after the party.

Morning came as it always does, and Mia was in the kitchen making a meal for herself and Angie. Since no one had asked for a breakfast, she wasn’t too concerned with the “guests” that were still here. Mr. Biggs could see to their comfort if he wanted to.

But apparently that message hadn’t gotten to Mr. Biggs. He came into the kitchen some short time later and wanted to know where breakfast was for him and the people who stayed over.

“Mr. Biggs, Mr. Gerome made no provisions about guests, overnight or otherwise. He stated that you would be entertaining a few people here, and that you would take care of the refreshments and meals needed. I have it in that letter you sent me. So, sir, I suggest that if you want breakfast for your guests, you get cooking.”

The look on Mr. Biggs’ face was too priceless. Mia wished that she had a cybernetic eye so she could take a picture and share it with Angie.

“Furthermore, your overnight guests have left Angela and I in a bind. We have to clean up after them, even though the catering mess was taken care of. Cleaning and straightening everything is going to take the two of us days, and it will cut into our other duties, which are of considerable more importance. However, they are here, and courtesy requires that we at least see them all out. Or should I mention all this to Mr. Gerome?”

At the mention of their mutual employer’s name, Biggs started sputtering and looked truly frightened. He started backpedaling and saying that it was okay, he’d take everyone out for a meal.

Mia nodded in satisfaction and continued with breakfast for herself and Angie.

While they worked and straightened up, Mia related the breakfast conversation to Angie. “Isn’t that going to get you in trouble?” she asked once the story had been related.

“Frankly, he can’t do much to me. I’ve been doing some research and the documents he gave me are about as genuine as can be. He can’t get me deported for being illegal since he made sure that I was legal in the first place. If he tries to state that my credentials are forgeries, then he’s going to have to prove how he knows their forgeries, which can only mean that he reveals where he got them.

“I’ve told Mr. Gerome the whole of the story here, just checking and covering my own tender posterior, and it turns out that the ‘letter’ Mr. Biggs sent over actually is a forgery. Mr. Gerome never signed anything of the sort. Guess he felt this illegal immigrant was too stupid to follow up with their employer about this, so Mr. Biggs isn’t in the best odor with our employer right now.”

“What did Mr. Gerome say he was going to do?”

“I was not told, but I was also instructed to keep a professional distance between Mr. Biggs and myself at all times. Apparently he’s as shady as he is sleazy.”

“I know what you mean. He’s pretty scummy and if I had to endure one more of his leering stares…”

Mia nodded in sympathy. He couldn’t hit on the guests or the staff he hired for the event, so the “safe” targets of his lascivious attentions were obviously the ‘helpless’ maids. Except they weren’t helpless, Angie had her contract with the agency that said she was safe from “unwanted sexual advances” from her employers, and Mia had Mr. Gerome. Just invoking his name sent Mr. Biggs running for the hills.

She was thinking of what could be done about Biggs when Angie asked her a question. “Mia, you are in contact with Mr. Gerome. Maybe you know what he wants to do now?”

Mia’s forehead wrinkled a bit. “What do you mean?”

“Well, he’s got us boxing up and selling the things on eBay, and that’s fine. I don’t mind doing it at all. He’s also got the Real Estate Agent showing the house, but it’s been a while since a serious offer was tendered. But he’s still renovating and now he wants us to repair the various fallen cabins and outbuildings. What’s he planning?”

Mia didn’t think she could prevaricate much. “Angie, I really don’t know. Yes, I’m in contact with him, but he hasn’t taken me into his confidence at all.”

They both fell silent as they thought. “I can tell you that Mr. Gerome is much more informed about what is going on here than anyone suspects. It’s my suspicion that he’s been out to the property several times, just to keep an eye on things. I’ve been keeping him fully aware of what is going on here, not only with the people hired to work on the buildings but also with some of the business employees I’ve come in contact with.

“So you think Mr. Gerome is not in Paris right now?”

Mia nodded. “He’s as much as told me so. I have no clue where he is, but I know he’s not where everyone thinks he is. He’s told me ‘I’ve seen yours and Angie’s work, and you are doing an excellent job. Keep it up.’ The only way he could do that is if he came on the property directly and looked at everything.”

Angie looked a bit nervous. “When and how do you think he did that? Maybe he came here as one of the workmen? Or a prospective client to buy the house? You can’t be saying that he’s Mr. Biggs, can you??”

Angie was nearly screaming in fear.

“Angie, ANGIE! Calm down.” Mia went to her friend and hugged her tight. “It’s okay. Mr. Gerome is a very nice man. He could have come in as one of the people to buy the house. He’s not Mr. Biggs. I’ve seen too many things that validate Mr. Biggs’ identification as him, pictures on his business cards and a full page ad in the Yellow Pages.”

Angie pointed out, “But you’ve seen Mr. Gerome. You know what he looks like.”

Mia’s brain froze. She had stated that she had met Mr. Gerome in various places, including his home. She couldn’t very well say that she hadn’t seen him now, could she? For a few minutes she did think about another set of lies to cover herself.

But, then she remembered the old axiom about how lies got more complex the more you tried to keep them. She sighed deeply in resignation and backed off from Angie.

“Angie, I know what Mr. Gerome looks like. I see his face in the mirror every morning.”

Confusion stopped Angie’s near breakdown. “I don’t understand.”

“Angie, I’m Gerome Phillips.”

 

---

 
To say that Angie was confused would be a massive understatement. To say she was shocked would be even more of one. To say she was easily convinced, well, that would make all the understatements in the world look like little white lies in comparison.

Finally Mia had to dig out old scrapbooks and photo albums. She had to produce Gerome’s driver’s license and the fingerprint cards that his grandmother had made in case he came up missing.

When the thumbprint of Mia and Gerome matched, Angie was finally convinced, without having to see Mia’s “equipment”.

It took the rest of the day to explain what was going on, and why this had happened. In the end Mia felt totally wrung out emotionally.

“Angie, honestly it wasn’t supposed to snowball like this. I really only went into this wanting to know how in the hell those servants in the 1900’s worked in these clothes. Then they felt so nice, then I just kept going, then you came along and I was trapped. It was easier to be Mia all the time than to try to come up with a plausible story about how I, a billionaire, was working in his own home as the lowest of the low.” She took a long sip of the Vodka martini she had made for herself, and looked at the Screwdriver she made for Angie with its ice melting into the untouched drink.

“Why didn’t you just come clean when you had the chance? I would have understood.”

“Angie, you are the VERY FIRST person to ever treat me as a person, not a rich kid that had something they wanted. Not as someone to be cultivated or used. Not as something that had to be protected because it was valuable. Not as someone that was to be isolated from the world because they didn’t know how to cope with reality. You treated me as a person. And, truth be told, I enjoyed that.”

Mia shrugged. “I’ll be the first to admit that I have little to no experience with day to day life. I have been isolated and kept in a hothouse. Most of what drives and motivates people I don’t know about. I have HUGE gaps in my education, mostly from being protected all my life. Grandmother kept me deliberately stunted in my education of the world. Oh, not the political and financial realities, but in the normal day to day lives of people, not the ultra-rich, not the business man, but the wage worker, who goes to work when they are sick as a dog doesn’t make much sense to me. Why not just take a week off to get well, or at LEAST go to the doctor…”

“Oh, that’s easy Mia, they don’t want to get fired.”

Mia looked in confusion at Angie. “Why on Earth would they be fired for being sick?”

Angie laughed. It was strained, but it was laughter. “Because it can be seen as malingering, it could be seen as them milking the system, it could be seen as them not really being that sick, but trying to pretend to be. If a manager wanted to fire them for a reason, he could use excessive sick days to do so. And there have been many thousands of people who have been fired for just that.”

Mia shook her head. “Just doesn’t make sense. You need time to heal, so you take the time to heal. You don’t take your illness into work, where everyone else will be infected and you will have a good chance of picking it back up when you get healed again, you just take as long as you need to get well. Simple as that.”

Angie shook her head. “You really don’t have a clue do you? Well, maybe you can make that the rule for your businesses one day. ‘Take the time you need off when you are sick and you can’t be fired for it.’ Shure would be a nice change of pace from what is out there now.”

“What do you mean with that?”

“Corporations are places that are made to be money machines. They make a product or products, sell them at the most the market can bear for them. Take Microsoft for example. They create programs and sell them for more than $600 a pop for one program. And people buy that at that price too. So what happens when they want to make more money? They raise the price. But when someone pays $600 for a product, they don’t want to pay $700 for the same product, especially when they know that there are some out there getting it for $400. So what does a corporation do? They find ways to cut costs. One of the costs is the employees.

“If they can reduce the money they are spending on the people that do the designing, on the person who puts the widget on the spindle, on the person who mops the floor at night, then they can save that money and put it in their pockets. If they cut the fifteen jobs for the custodians down to ten, then they save the salary of those five people they fired. If that can be carried over to every job in the corporation then they can make even more money. Reduce the staff by 10%, one job in ten, and redistribute the rest of the work among the nine left, you can save hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, all of it for the salary bonuses for the president, the CEO, the Vice Presidents and really top level managers. So it’s in their vested interests to cut costs down to the point where you are making a really expensive product for a fraction of what it costs to make it.

“For another example, look at Wal-Mart. They don’t pay their workers shit. They give them NO benefits, but they have a retail business that makes money hand over fist. They can sell things for $2 while everyone else is selling the same product for $3.50 because they pay their workers abysmally, and they use the cheapest possible materials for their stores, and buy crappy quality products to sell. So they buy 50,000 teddy bears for two cents per bear. That particular bear is going to be sold for $2 in the store. That particular bear is also not going to last a year, the child is going to destroy it through normal use, and then Mom and Dad are going to have to buy another $2 bear because the quality bear which costs $4 and would last like 5 years isn’t in the price range of Mom and Dad at the time they are buying. So Mom and Dad get the bear, and have to get it again, and again and again, making Wal-Mart a total of $10 over those five years. Wal-Mart paid ten cents for them, the sales rep in Wal-Mart has quit and another has taken their place. Meanwhile Wal-Mart has closed the store in the area because, after driving all the other stores in the area out of business due to undercutting their prices so much, they can’t keep it open without raising prices. So now Mom and Dad have to drive 50 miles to get a $2 bear. And they could have saved themselves tons of money by simply spending the $4 in the first place.”

Angie slugged down her Screwdriver, and Mia was sympathetic. “I take it you speak from experience?”

Angie nodded. “Yeah, from the child’s perspective. Mom was an associate there, worked her fingers off and they didn’t do shit for her. Hazardous chemicals everywhere, soul-destroying work, and laughable health insurance. Did you know that they don’t even get sick days? You don’t get sick leave until your SECOND day of being out sick. If you are out one day, and come in the next, it’s ‘unpaid vacation’ and you don’t get any money. Do that too often and you get fired. For being sick. So you see lots of associates coming in sick because they can’t take two days off, and they can’t afford to be out one day. Which is the point.”

“I never knew any of this.”

Angie snorted. “There’s a book out there, WAL-MART: THE HIGH COST OF LOW PRICE*, I think, which details this and LOTS of other tactics they use in great detail. And the hell of it is that more and more corporations are using this as a model to copy, rather than a practice to be avoided. Workers, the people who make it possible for the business to thrive, are not being seen as valuable assets anymore, they are being seen as disposable cogs. After all, you can always find someone else to glue part A to circle B and put it into box D. It doesn’t take a brain or even a lot of manual dexterity. The only people who actually make money in this kind of economy are the ones who have real skills, engineers, programmers, designers and those kinds of professional skills, the ones that can’t be replicated easily. Everyone else is expendable.”

Mia went and made more drinks. “So why did you decide to become a maid?”

Angie had flopped back on the couch with her eyes closed. “Oh, domestics are one of those classes of low-wage workers where if you get the right job the pay and perks can be really good. There’s lots of rich people around, they want domestic help, and a lot of them don’t really want the Spanish/Mexican/Middle Eastern help that is out there. Those are for the hotels or a maid service like Molly Maid or The Sweep Squad. Being Caucasian in this market almost guarantees you a prime assignment, if only because you will blend into the décor easier. If you are good at the work, the bosses will do what they have to do to keep you happy and in their employ.

“I wouldn’t go back to Wal-Mart no matter what, and I like doing the dishes. So I went back to school for a bit to get degrees in cooking and classes in housekeeping, an MBA and some knowledge of accounting, and I got this job. Thought I had it made, if you will pardon the pun. Work that I like, that I’m good at, with a boss that’s never around, no other servants with the petty back biting gossiping to deal with, and a fellow maid that is attractive and kind. What an ass I was.”

“HEY!...”

“Sorry, it’s true Mia. I thought it had it made in the shade. I was a total idiot not to see this one coming. I knew it was too good to be true, but I hoped that it would be okay despite being too good. Now I’ve lost my job, back on the street again, and then there’s those student loans….”

Mia said “How much?”

Angie’s eyes snapped open. “What?”

“How much are the student loans you owe?”

“I still have $22,780 to pay off before I’m a free girl.”

“Done.”

Angie sat up. “What?”

Mia looked at her. “I said, ‘Done.’ As in, I’ll pay them off. Totally and completely. You stop worrying about them now. And don’t think that you lost your job because of any of this. I lied to you, not the other way around. So as an apology I’ll pay off your bill and you can use that money for you, while you are still employed here and I have someone I can trust help me through all these murky waters. I don’t know anything about being a ‘normal’ person, and I am terrified to find out that I’m not.”

“Mia, you are not and can never be a normal person. Just by asking the question ‘am I a normal person’ that proves you aren’t. Just like if you were asking if you were insane.”

“Then I’m going to need even more help,” she said miserably. “Not only do I have to figure out how to blend in as a normal person, but I have to figure out what the hell is going on with the businesses I inherited and what the fuck to do about a shady lawyer who is apparently forging papers left and right. So that’s even more demand on my time. At least I can drop the pretense that Mr. Gerome and I are different people so I don’t have to keep lying to you about that. That will simplify things a lot.”

Angie started to stand up. “Do you want me to move to another room or should I move you to the Master Bedroom?”

Mia looked at her friend. “Neither. If you have no problem sharing the room with me, I don’t have a problem still sharing it with you. Besides there’s all those others out there,” she waved her hand vaguely at the outside word “to consider. It would be odd if Mia moved into the Master Suite. But, if Mia just stayed where she was at…. No questions.”

Mia and Gerome consulted briefly mentally. Soon she came to a decision. “Okay, we’re going to do something else. You are going to still be doing what you have been, cleaning and maintaining the house. You’ll start doing a bit more than half of the work since I’m not going to be helping as much, but I will still be helping you. Right now, we are going to get all those rooms cleaned up. Most of the agenda we have in front of us is still going to be the same. I’m just going to be doing more in regards to the overall empire I inherited. Let me set a few dozen things in motion and I’ll be with you to help out. You go start on the rooms on the East End Second Floor. Work your way back toward here, and I’ll join you soon.”

Angie stood up, possibly a bit too quickly and she got dizzy momentarily. Once she got her balance back, Mia was about to let her have the day off, but Angie left the room, headed to get her chores done.

Mia went into the main office and pulled out the computer. She sent off a bunch of emails to various private investigation agencies that she and her grandmother had used before, and got them looking at what Mr. Biggs had been doing for the last several months.

While she was doing that, she accepted one bid from a contractor to come out and start renovating the cabins. She also made sure that they would remove the ruins and clear the waste off the property.

Now things were going to pick up pace a bit, since she no longer had to hide her Gerome hat from Angie.

Once her work as Gerome was done, Mia went to help Angie. She couldn’t put the whole of the housework on her alone, and so it was up to her to help out until they got more help in there.

Mia was still unsure as to whether or not she wanted to hire more of the staff back to work here. She did want to remove the house from the market now, keeping the house now that she knew more of the house and the grounds.

Still undecided was what she would do with the house. She still didn’t need 20 bedrooms, and the cabins would be nice, but unless they were used and maintained, they would fall to pieces as well.

She was turning all this over in her mind when she suddenly knew the perfect thing she could do with the house and all the grounds.

She found Angie in one of the bedrooms, having vacuumed and straightened up, in the process of changing the linens on the bed. There was a pile of laundry over near the door that needed to go down the chute to the machines in the basement. So Mia picked up the pile and walked it down to the chute, dumped the load in and came back to help Angie.

They worked in companionable silence for a while, each knowing her job in the chores that needed to be done. There really wasn’t a need to discuss what had to be done, and Mia did a quick check of the bathroom to make sure nothing had been skipped.

Once most of the heavy cleaning was completed, Mia called a quit to the rest of the housework. “It’s fine Angie, really. We are taking the rest of the day off, tomorrow too. Just necessary cleaning and it doesn’t have to be done if we don’t want to.”

Angie’s mouth was open in shock.

Mia saw her. “I’m serious. I’m going to treat us to a spa day. You and I are going to the most expensive and pampering spa in the area, and we are going to make a day of it. I insist. AND we are leaving the dishes in the sink.”

Angie could only blink in shock. “Okay, are you sure? I mean, even if it doesn’t have to be ready-for-display tomorrow, there’s still things to be done.”

Mia nodded. “Yes, there are, but most of it can wait. So the eBay bidders get their stuff a day late. No one is going to die. There are no showings at all, and the lawyers don’t have the keys so everything here is perfectly safe. All that is going to happen is that you and I are going to be pampered as two ladies of quality should be. Besides, there’s some plans to discuss.”

“Plans?”

“Yes, plans. And I am NOT discussing them now. We are having dinner delivered and taking it easy for a while.”

So a delivery service was called to bring in dinner from a nice restaurant and it was consumed in companionable silence. Next was a trip to the living room, where the TV was turned on so the two of them could catch up on the shows of the day, but after 20 minutes of going through the various channels, they both found that it had been too long and neither of them were up to date on the new shows and the various channel schedules.

They finally settled on a “on demand” movie and watched the sentimental show about a girl and her mom with the romantic guy causing problems and both cried. Mia liked it for the artistry and the relationship she would never have with any mother figure, and Angie was crying at the romance between the lead and the cute guy.

Once they had both recovered and gotten their sinuses unstuck from all the crying, they retired to their bedroom and started getting ready for the night. “Angie, would you have a problem if I changed up the job duties you have around here? Or if I hired more of the old staff back on here?”

“It would depend on what my job would be changing to Mia.”

“Right now I’m thinking ‘lady’s maid’ instead of ‘maid-of-all-work’. It would mean that I’d have to hire back some of the maids and especially the housekeeper and probably the footmen and butler to work in the house like normal. You, being the lady’s maid, would be outside of their hierarchy, but still a servant, and of course, there would be people like the cook and scullery maid. I’d probably have to hire a hall boy too.”

“Why hire back all those people for just you and I? Or for that matter, just you? Surely that’s massive overkill?”

“Well, I’ve decided to keep Bellweather, and that’s going to mean that I need a lot of help around here.”

“You’re keeping the mansion and grounds now?”

“Yes. I’ll get the estate agent to de-list this property tomorrow before we leave. It’s not like there’s been a lot of offers on the property anyhow. But now that I’ve decided to keep the place, and since I’m planning on actually doing something with this place, it’s going to mean that there’s going to be a lot more work.”

After that bombshell, Angie kept trying to get Mia to tell her what was going to be done, but Mia held firm and they didn’t discuss it anymore that night.

Mia got up early and went to her computer and sent off an email to the Estate Agent to tell her that the estate was to be delisted. She didn’t really care if the woman would protest or not, she simply stated in no uncertain terms that the property was off the market now.

She then searched around for the most exclusive day spa that was in the area, and found one to take Angie to. She really wanted to overwhelm her with luxury today.

Once that was done, she went in and woke Angie at about 7:30, hours after the time they would normally have gotten up. They both dressed in some clothes that they didn’t get to wear much of, and then went out to the garage.

Angie naturally started going toward the Bug, but Mia lead the way to the Benz. In this case, the use of her grandmother’s vehicle would be totally appropriate. They slid into the cream colored leather interior and Mia started the engine. Soon they were on their way to the Spa.

They both chatted on the way, and since it was likely that the spa wasn’t open just yet, Mia made a detour to a breakfast restaurant that her grandmother had taken him to a couple times when they were out for one reason or another. It wasn’t exclusive or anything, but it was a place that was very proud of the distinction of being a VERY late café, one that didn’t open until 10 PM and stayed open to noon, so that all the third shift workers, the club workers, the people who serviced the downtown area and fed the very rich could have a place to come and eat once they got off shift. As such, it was well appointed and the staff wasn’t obnoxious.

They chatted about inconsequentials over breakfast, and Mia knew that Angie was dying to know what Mia had decided to do with Bellweather. Mia did everything to deflect and sidestep those questions, with the goal being to talk to her when they both were up to their necks in hot water and pampering.

About four hours later, they were just that, reclining in a hot mud bath. Both had been waxed and stripped, fussed over, plucked, rubbed, hot stoned, zapped in some cases to kill those pesky stubborn hairs that just wouldn’t die, facialed, washed and rubbed again. This was actually the first time that Angie and Mia had been in the same room since they walked through the door.

The first few minutes were silent as they both adjusted to the temperature of the pits. Mia was relaxing in bliss, when Angie’s voice came across the room.

“Okay, Mia, spill it. You’ve been coy about what you want to do with Bellweather since last night, and now you have a perfect opportunity to tell me your nefarious plot. So spill it already.”

“Well, I’ve been thinking….”

---

* http://www.amazon.com/Wal-Mart-The-High-Cost-Price/dp/193285...

Finally free of Grandma, Gerome begins the adventure of a lifetime. Will reality match his dreams? Maid to be a Man? By Maid Joy

---

Chapter 7

“I think that this will be innovative enough that we can make some real money off it.

“A few years ago I saw a special on a finishing school for girls that reenacts the time just before 1861.”

Angie interrupted. “Why does that date sound so familiar?”

Mia grinned. “Because you paid attention in history class dear.” Her accent shifted, “That's when those nawthen states had their little-ole War of Nawthen Aggression. They came traipsin down and attacked with nah pravacation. They just came in and started killin everyone, all because the Confederate States tried to thro off the yoke of Nawthern Oppression just like they did with the English nearly a century befaw. Imagine that… When they do it, it's a REVOLUTION… when we do it it's TREASON.” She laughed.

Angie was barely containing her giggles. “Mia where did you learn that accent? In Manitoba?”

Mia sobered. “Angie, I'm not really Canadian you know. I was born here in this state, Bellweather is my home, I grew up there and many of the markings that are in the walls and doors I either put there or know how they got there. I've heard the history of Bellweather over and over again, and could probably recite it to you if you really wanted to hear it. I have a lot of memories of the place.” Her voice trailed off in reminisces.

“Why on Earth would you want to sell it then?”

Mia was truly shocked. “What in Heaven's name would I want with it? I mean, 20 bedrooms, a Grand Ballroom, a Dining Room to seat 40 and servant's quarters that would house 20? I may be rich, but a young playboy about town doesn't need a mausoleum like that to come home to every night. PLUS all the outbuildings, PLUS all the contents of the attics and basements and outbuildings? And the upkeep on the grounds? I mean, really… And given that I don't do enough to keep just a few people employed to wait on me, and certainly not enough to keep a staff like the mansion requires."

Angie had the good grace to blush. "Okay, I can see how a single playboy wouldn't need it, so why not put it all in mothballs and keep it for later?"

Mia shifted a little. "Mostly it's because I didn't want to be bothered. I mean, I had lived there all my life, I had a lot of memories from the place, most of them involving my grandmother the witch, and those memories have all kinds of emotional baggage attached to them. I had to work and work hard to understand businesses I wasn't interested in so my grandmother would praise me, to get money I didn't need, for employees that I could care less about. It was just always me giving to everyone else and never having the time do do anything for me.

"I was sick of doing and being for others. I had decided that I wanted to chuck it all and let others just live their life while I went my own way."

"So why didn't you just sell everything and clip coupons for the rest of your life?"

"Because it's never that simple." Mia stood and started cleaning the mud off herself. "With money like I have now there are TONS of unintended consequences. Believe it or not, just dumping that much on the various markets would cause things to get depressed fast. It could even collapse the economy. And it wouldn't just affect the businesses I own, it would also affect businesses that do business with my companies, and the companies that do business with those companies, and so on. The ripples keep spreading, and eventually could hurt the world economy.

"So I just decided to be the playboy, like so many of the jet-set, and have a peripheral interest in the businesses and live off the money it brought in. I would hire managers, get something on them to keep them loyal to me and insure they didn't steal too much or they would be killed, metaphorically speaking, and just let the money roll in while I go and try to spend it all."

A quick spray of a shower, the mud was gone from Mia's body. She wrapped the towel around herself and started drying off. "Now I know better, thanks to what you have said. So I'm going to actually do something I'm interested in. I'll probably have to do stuff with the other companies occasionally, but I will be damned before I lose myself taking care of everyone else."

Angie got up and moved toward the showers herself. Mia could only guess at her mood as the thoughtful look on Angie's face didn't tell Mia much. Thoughtful good? Thoughtful bad? Thoughtful pissed? What?

Finally when Angie was cleaned off, she turned to Mia. "So, what IS it you plan going to be?"

The attendants came back into the room and took them both off to more of the luxury they earned, so Angie would just have to wait.

When they got back home after all the pampering, Mia began to lay out the whole plan.

"You know that Bed and Breakfast places are popular. So are places that do reenactment things like the Society for Creative Anachronisms and the Civil War players. My idea is to do both, and make Bellweather a place where people can come and play at being Victorian Lord or Lady for a week or so. Oh, and they will pay us through the nose for the privilege too."

Angie's mouth was open. "That's an interesting business model. I don't think I know of any other place that does something like this. So basically it's an immersive role-play experience in a beautiful mansion working and living by Victorian rules? Would this continue to the servants as well? 'Come play a maid for a week and explore how controlled you are' thing?"

"I hadn't considered that, but we could definitely do that. There would have to be one or two of the positions open to rotate the guests through and we would have to keep some of the staff always on and always available. So, I'm thinking like 6-10 guests doing the high Victorian thing, and 2-4 doing the servants? Think that sounds right?"

"I think some more research is needed," Angie said.

They went to the library and raided all the shelves for anything that might be relevant to Victorian mansions, the running of, staffing, and households in general. Once all the books were collected, Angie sat down with them and started going through them page by page looking for information. At milady's working desk in the library, she started making lists of things she found. Meanwhile, Mia was scouring the Internet for more information.

They each took about 8 hours to do the research, with breaks for meals and bathroom breaks. But at the end they had a ton of information.

In the end, the assembled information told them a lot.

First they would have to hire back most of the staff that Gerome had let go.

Second, they would have to expand the wardrobes that Mia and Angie had.

Third, it would be imperative that Mia stayed around to be the "Lady of the Manor" with Angie as her Lady's Maid. Why have to hire someone to do the job Mia dreamed of?

Fourth, there was a huge market for this kind of fantasy yet there was a question that urgently needed to be answered. Was it better to move the whole thing to England or keep it in the United States. While the setting was better for this kind of entertainment in England, most of those who were interested in participating in this kind of program and had the money to afford it were in the US and Canada. Mia decided that keeping it as a Victorian/Edwardian time period would make it unique and desirable to their prospective clients.

"You know, I wish I had thought of this earlier," Mia complained much later. "Most of what we got rid of to the various reenactment groups is EXACTLY what we need to buy back."

Angie said "It might just be better to buy new, that way you can get them custom made, you can add in the various tricks that will allow those who are renting them for the immersion to fit their clothing. But I think that really, the first order of business is getting the staff back and working on what will need to be done in preparation for this house and the grounds, if you want to move forward with this business model."

"What do you mean?"

"Mia, I love you, but this is going to be really REALLY hard to do. If we do the immersion cosplay, are they going to want events like in the books? Hunting parties, balls, fishing trips, things like that? What about romances like you find in Emily Bronte? Handsome men to come in and sweep off your feet? What if they come and they are the typical 'ugly American' who doesn't know how to take high tea and eats their entree with fish fork? And who knows in this day and age how to address a Bishop unless you are actually royalty and grew up with this from birth? How many people are going to compare Bellweather to the romantic comedy 'Austenland'?"

Mia nodded as she considered these points. "Okay, first thing is we hire back the staff. We work from there and don't worry about the next step, just the one we are on."

They took their time over the next few weeks to contact every former employee of the mansion. Most were already reemployed in other places, but some were able to be coaxed back with promises of bonuses and raises. Some, like the Housekeeper and Butler, were available to employment immediately. It turns out that they didn't go looking for additional employment because they decided to just retire together, as the old married couple they were.

The servant housing was reopened and refurbished first. Single people were housed in the dorm area of the mansion, and couples were moved into the housing units. Most were able to get their former living spaces back with no problems.

Mia and Angie had to be moved to the Mistress's Bedroom. Since Mia was going to be playing the role of the Lady of the Manor, and Angie was to be her Lady's Maid, this was the most appropriate bedroom suite. Mostly they just carried her things up to the Master Suite, and then put Angie and her things in the attached Lady's Maid room. The "Lord's Suite" was correctly across the hall and the occupant would be paying handsomely for the privilege of laying his head there.

While the servants settled into their quarters and got things ready for the household to open as a location to live in, Mia and Angie went through all the wardrobe choices for both of them in the closets. They had both hung what they found in the attics up in milady's room and in the various drawers. Now they had to pull each piece out and check it over for problems such as sizing and time damage.

"I'm not seeing much problem with the ravages of time, Mia. I think the only issue we will have with these is going to be getting them to fit you and me. I mean, I think these ladies were size 0 or something, this is ridiculous."

Mia couldn't help but agree. Most of the clothing seemed to be sized for someone with a 16 inch waist, who was no more than 5 foot 2 inches in height. "I think we are going to be giving a lot of business to the dress maker we went to not too long ago."

Angie grimaced. "I can see that, but I have another thought. She and her staff are going to be doing all the staff's uniforms, and may be way too busy to do our wardrobes as well. How about enlisting and paying those reenactors and historical preservation people to make us the wardrobes we need?"

"That's a good thought," Mia said. "We have been sending all kinds of the vintage stuff to them, so I guess we are owed a favor or two, and if we pay them for this stuff, I can't see where the objections would be too horrible."

Soon they had their computers out again and were looking up the people they had contacted on various costuming boards. They each put up multiple posts calling for those who were interested in helping to make entire wardrobes for them to use. Details and pictures were quickly posted and all were invited to contact them for information and details.

They managed to scrounge together a couple of outfits each for themselves, and had a good time putting them on. Once properly gowned, Mia went to find the Housekeeper, while Angie got her study and office ready for Mia's use.

Mrs. Jessica Callum had been the Housekeeper forever, and knew the property and building as well as, if not better than, Gerome himself. She recognized Mia as Mr. Gerome from the beginning, and once the situation was explained to her, she found it immensely funny. Mrs. Callum had many stories about how Mr. Gerome had bitten off far more than he could chew, and spent a couple hours telling it to Angie with a laugh in her voice. Mia didn't really mind since she had a good sense of humor about Mr. Gerome.

Angie was kept laughing about all this for several hours, and Mia grew more and more embarrassed at each tale related. Finally when she could stand it no more, Mia recalled everyone to the task at hand.

"Mrs. Callum, we are going to have to have your assistance if this is going to be a successful venture. I'm not talking about business acumen, but we will need to figure out what we need for the servants in the way of period items and clothing, what we will need for the guests and what I will need. I'm thinking that I'll need multiple outfits for each day, and if we are doing it as a two-week immersion, then I figure I'll need about three outfits a day, which comes up to a total of 42 outfits, not counting all the ball gowns and such."

Mrs. Callum thought about that a few moments. "If you also add in things like party dresses, nightgowns, robes, bathing costumes and so on, there's quite a few more outfits. Then you add in all the guest's clothing needs, plus both sexes…"

Mia dropped her head into her hands. "You're right. Gods, I didn't think about all THOSE outfits too. Plus two complete sets of livery for every servant for each day…"

"Many of those can be washed and recycled. But you will need all the underthings for the ladies, corsets and so on, and all the underthings for the gentlemen as well…"

Angie spoke up. "But if they bring their own things, that will negate a lot of that expense to us."
"M'dear, even if they do, do you honestly think that they won't need extra? M'lady Mia can't be seen in the same outfit twice by those that are guests here, and while the guests can, there's still getting it all right for differing occasions. I think you may need to consider hiring a full time seamstress and modiste to live on the property and help the people who are to play here."

"Since we have the town set up for supporting the manor, do you think that free or very reduced housing would be something that could be offered as a perk of working here?"

Mrs. Callum said "Yes, I think that might help. Live over your shop, get some of the people who want to work in a more primitive society to move in as well as farmers and such, then you have a source for butter and eggs for the mansion, and you might even get those who want to barter their work for living space, have fresh organic items and less modern methods of farming."

Mia got really excited. "This is sounding more and more like a Victorian Jamestown right here in Virginia! With the added bonus that you can come and live like that for a span."

Angie blushed and then spoke. "Don't forget that one rustic cabin we found, with all the leather in it? There's people who would pay a lot of money to come do that in private and seclusion to each other, or pay to be the 'controlled and punished sissy maid' as an option."

"Yes, but WE don't do that. If the guest wants to do it, fine, they can. But we don't play that with any of the guests. We are not a BnB/BDSM place, just a place where you can come be a doll for a while."

Mrs. Callum was nodding, "Begging your pardon ma'am, but that always struck me as one of those 'it takes all sorts' kind of things. It's okay if they want it done, but I won't do it. Unfortunately the Housekeeper is the one that is going to be doing most of that punishment to those who do want that kind of play as a servant or French Maid. I don't care if they want that, just don't ask me to play too."

Mia nodded. "Don't worry about that. IF it is done at all, it will be over in the cabins or in their bedrooms. Speaking of which, do we have locks on the bedroom doors?"

Angie spoke up. "Of course. Doors in old places like this all had locks on the bedroom doors, just for those times when the guests wanted to jump each other. The problem is making the doors secure with modern conveniences, but making it so that those are hidden, like the heating and AC in the house, the vacuum system, the wifi, the light bulbs and such."

Mia rolled her eyes. "Oh my gods, ANOTHER renovation? We just finished several."

By spending several weeks in research and contacting contractors, Mia and Angie were able to figure out just how much they needed to do still.

Contractors arrived to refurbish (and in some cases rebuild) all the cabins on the property. Mia made sure to point out to the contractors that they needed to hide the modern conveniences any place they could. Putting the compressors for the HVAC underground wasn't practical, but putting it some distance away and burying the power and hoses to the house was possible, while building a rustic-looking rock over the top of the compressor hid the machinery itself.

Gaslights were replaced with the gas-like bulbs to give the flicker of candles and jet flames. Where the light was actually needed (for desk lamps and reading), Edison bulbs (much better made than the original) were installed.

The dilemma about the room locks was solved by having a specialty locksmith make an electronic lock that would work with ancient brass keys. The person who cast the keys embedded a small RFID chip into it that could be custom coded for a guest's stay. The key would be programmed when the guest arrived and given to their assigned body servant, to be given to them when they were actually in their room, as per etiquette. The housemaids had master keys to the bedrooms so they could enter and clean while the guest was gone, just as the Housekeeper did. The old key would be inserted into the door, the RFID chip read by the lock mechanism, then they would be able to turn the lock to open the door. Without that RFID, the locking mechanism wouldn't turn, and it couldn't be picked either.

Having so many items custom made gave an appreciation of modern technology to Mia. They had the entire property wired up with WiFi, and set it all so it wouldn't broadcast its availability, but would be available to those who knew it was there in the first place. Electrical sockets were hidden in odd places, under tables with the power wires snaking through the legs of the furniture into a hole in the floor, then under the flooring itself and in special channels under carpets in the floor. Wide screen TVs were hidden by putting them in a frame, and placing a scrim over it showing a painting. When turned on the picture from the TV would shine through.

Mia wasn't about to give up her modern conveniences, and neither were the staff. But all that had to be hidden to keep the experience up for the guests. The cabins were another matter, they could be what they actually were, since none of the Immersive Guests would be staying there.

Even so, Mia had a pamphlet made up for those who were renting the cabins to show them all the features, like where outlets were, what the WIFI password was and so on. Delivery of food orders from the house was available to the cabins by an old Wells-Fargo wagon, or if the guest preferred, they could purchase the makings or full meals from the people in town and cook it themselves.

The Servant's Village took on a life of its own. More people were being invited so they could add their special skills to the overall area. Farmers who wanted to do more primitive farming and use more organic techniques were contacted, offered housing for a low rent, and they came. Their goods could be sold in a local Farmer's Market every Saturday, and most days at the greengrocer. Skilled craftsmen in various arts such as cobbling and joinery were asked to come and live here. The Servant's Village became the local Tennant's Town.

One problem came to light when the local county contacted Mia about the resources she was suddenly demanding and using. The conference with the local government was very illuminating. The age of Manor Houses and Tennant Farmers was long over, so the local Sheriff had legal authority over the area of Bellweather and the County Government officials had to make their voices known too. Bellweather was also purchasing electricity, water and sewage from the local county, and while it wasn't obvious, having a garbage truck come through every week was certainly jarring to the facade they were presenting. Conversations went back and forth about how to disguise these services, and if it might be easier to just set Bellweather up as the unincorporated town of Bellweather and be done with it.

While renovations were going on in the manor and the other buildings, additional housing was erected in the town to house those invited in. Once the idea got out to those who wanted to live like this permanently, Mia and Angie had a flood of letters and emails asking about opportunities to live and work at Bellweather.

One group that was invited in nearly immediately were the clothes makers. There was going to be an incredibly large demand for clothing, not only for the servants, but the guests as well. Potters moved in to make dishes and a blacksmith took up residence. In every case, the people moving in were informed that the whole point of Bellweather was to make an experience for the guest of the manor. While modern conveniences such as plumbing and electricity were okay to have, they did have to blend in with the overall environment. Music was alright, loud boom boxes were not. A modern sewing machine was fine as long as it looked like an old treadle machine. Having a car was fine, as long as it was not parked in the garage behind your house but in a locked garage building at the train station where the guests would be arriving. Unless, of course, the town person happened to own a 1864 Parker electric car.

One of the biggest headaches was installing the special closets in each bedroom to hide the modern luggage in. Since the experience was to be immersive, Mia decided to start it all on the train. The guest would come into a location where the train would pick them up. While on the train ride, which took under 30 minutes to complete, they would be given clothing to change into or to cover up the modern clothing. Dusters, long coats, goggles and so on were on the train ready to make the guest feel like they were in Victorian America. Meanwhile, their luggage would be placed into steamer trunks, and their handbags or packs would be put into carpet bags. Once they arrived at the town, their belongings would be placed with them on the carriage or antique car for the trip to the Mansion.

Once there, the guest would be greeted by Mia, the hostess, and offered time to relax and refresh themselves. They would be led to their assigned room by their body servant, who would unpack the "trunk" and "bags" in the room without them being present. The body servant would help them dress for the next meal. The guest would be presented with their key, and then they were free to go wandering. Once the bags were unpacked and appropriate items were put away, or where the guest could get at it, all the rest would be left in their luggage. The servant would turn off any electronic devices they found, open up the special closet and store all the luggage and other modern things in it, and plug in the electronica to special outlets in the closet to let it charge. The closet would then be locked with the room key.

The guest was then in Victorian America until they left.

The locals could get out any time they needed to, simply by taking the train a half an hour to their car, then going wherever they needed to go. The people around Bellweather soon started understanding why these people would pop up with odd clothes needing something from them, and stopped making comments about it. To help the locals, Mia made sure the train service to and from the town was free and ran out and back every other hour all day.