Help wanted part 3

“But still.”

“It’s a different business, and if we have to I’ll sub-contract that type of work out to any number of shops that can do it. So if we had say, a thousand tee off blocks to do. Yeah, we’ll sub it out. Even if I just make two bucks a block, it’s just a phone call away.”

“So if we’re getting a hundred bucks a piece for the bench carvings, how much is he getting for them?”

“I don’t care,” I said, “we’re good with the hundred bucks right?”

“I guess.”

“You can’t over think this.”

“What if someone came in and handed you a piece and said, make me a copy. How would we do it?”

“Ah, it’s called a pantograph. We have one right over there,” I pointed to the rarely used corner of the shop. “It’s pretty slow though, but for one or two copies, it’s perfect.”

Caitlyn and I agreed that it would be mutually beneficial if she broke off the carving work an hour earlier than me so that she could get started on dinner. We were still going to split the six grand.

I stayed in the shop for an extra hour. We had made good progress in that first day. As usual I did a fifteen minute clean-up before locking up.

As soon as I stepped in through the door I could smell roast chicken. Caitlyn was dressed in black sweatpants and a tie-dyed t-shirt. Immediately I saw the nipple and nipple ring imprints.

My cock stirred.

She was wearing fuzzy pink slippers. Somehow fuzzy pink didn’t seem to go with the whole Goth persona.

“Smells great Caitlyn! Do I have time for a shower?”

She stepped up to me, wrapped her arms around my neck, kissed me on the lips and said, “Welcome home Doug.” She broke the embrace and ran off giggling. “Yes you have time for a shower,” she said from the kitchen and giggled again.

As I showered I thought about how Caitlyn looked when she first came to the interview and how she has slowly been changing to the point where she’s wearing a tie-dyed t-shirt and pink slippers. She no longer wore all that black make-up, the funny jewelry was gone, even the black fingernail polish, gone. Her hair was still black and the nose ring still in place. I wondered if she was shedding all that consciously or through benign neglect.

“I don’t know about you but I’m beat,” I said as I came down the stairs dressed in t-shirt and sweats, “hungry and beat.”

“Well dinner’s almost ready,” I heard from the kitchen, then her head popped around the corner, “I hope you’re not too tired,” she said smirking.

I know I was grinning.

It’s as if there were two Caitlyns. She would never say anything like that in the shop. For some strange reason the image of the Whistling Swans logo came to mind. Two birds entwined at their necks, mirror imaging each other. Was that Caitlyn? Two halves to make the whole?

Was I like that too?

I certainly liked the shop half Caitlyn.

And I was certainly looking forward to dinner, then fucking the hell out of the house half Caitlyn.

At that moment I realized I was onto something really good. I had to be careful not to blow it.

Dinner was roast chicken, roasted potatoes with rosemary, roasted parsnips and Brussels sprouts all smothered in a tangy gravy that had just a hint of tomato to it. She also made a side salad with what she described as homemade Russian dressing.

The chicken was done to perfection. The whole dinner was.

“What do you do, in your idle time?” I asked as we ate. “When it’s just Caitlyn Progue?”

“I masturbate incessantly. What do you do?”

The house half Caitlyn never let up.

“I watch TV.”

“Porno?”

“No. News mainly.”

We regarded each other silently for a moment and then each took a bite.

“You don’t want to know about me.”

I know I stared at her for a moment. What a daft thing to say. I sliced a piece of chicken.

“Of course I want to know about you. I want to know everything about you.”

Her face turned to me in a most peculiar way. She reflected for a long time before picking at her salad.

“You won’t believe me if I tell you,” she said finally.

“Tell me what?”

“What I do in my spare time.”

Now my curiosity was definitely piqued. I scratched my chin. “Let me guess.”

She simply smiled at me as she took a mouthful.

“Embroidery?”

“Yeah, that’s it.” She chuckled with food in her mouth.

“Sumo wrestling? Chinchilla farming? Competitive tiddly-winks? Oh, I know what it is, you have a yeast collection.”

She grinned, nodded her head and swallowed.

“Come on, what is it?” I pressed.

“I reinterpret early Christian music to synthesizer, sometimes it involves transcribing from old tablature.”

My expression must have said it all.

“Mainly medieval and renaissance.”

I know I was staring at her in disbelief.

“de Machaut, Tallis, Hucbald, Ockeghem. One of my favorites is Caterina Assandra. She was a Benedictine nun, Italian, she wrote a number motets and then, of course, there is Giovanni Pierluigi da Palestrina, but his works are a bit more challenging.