Story: The Job Interview. Part 2.

by Inanimate77

A day had passed since Susan had interviewed Amy for the housemaid position and the college junior was having second thoughts. Although her options were pretty limited, she felt the whole idea of working as a housemaid demeaning. Unable to sleep much, Amy had gotten up early and spent the last several hours scanning every source she could find for job opportunities that would meet her needs.

There were plenty of jobs out there. That was not the problem. The challenge was two fold. She really needed flexibility. School was unpredictable. There would be nights she needed more time to study. Her class schedule also changed every couple of months. That problem was manageable. The bigger issue, however, was the lack of housing. The Boston housing market was really tight. With her limited credit history and negligible income, no respectable landlord was going to offer her a lease. Unless Amy was open to living in a bad neighborhood far from school her options were pretty limited

The longer she searched the more determined Amy became to find a way out of the situation, but so far a solution eluded her. Just before lunch Amy's phone buzzed with a text. The message indicated that Amy had an appointment at Stitch n'Time to be fitted for her uniforms. It appeared that despite her best efforts things were beginning to move forward.

Story: The Job Interview. Part 1.

by Inanimate77

This was not the job that Amy had expected to get when she went away to college, but that didn't matter at the moment. The 21 year old junior didn't have an internship and was completely out of cash. To make matters worse, her lease was up and she didn't have a place to live. She really needed this job whether she wanted to do it or not. That was how she found herself at the doorstep of the large home inquiring about a live-in housemaid position.

The advertisement highlighted several key benefits which appealed to Amy. First the hours were flexible which was critical to the college student. Amy needed a job that would work with her college class schedule. However, even more important to Amy was the fact that the job was a live-in position. It included free housing and given her current apartment situation that was very appealing.

Ringing the doorbell, the business major was not sure what to wear and had picked something out that was probably more appropriate for an interview with a corporation, not a potential employer looking for a maid.

As she stood at the doorstep, Amy nervously fidgeted with her skirt, trying to smooth out the wrinkles. She took a deep breath and looked at herself in the reflection of the door's peephole. Her long curly hair was tied up in a bun, and she had put on some minimal makeup to look more presentable.

The woman who answered the door appeared to be in her early 30s. She had brown hair that was pulled back in a ponytail and piercing green eyes. While Amy was dressed quite formally, her potential employer was wearing a baggy t-shirt and a pair of designer leggings. She gave Amy a strange look, "Hello can I help you?"

The woman's reaction made Amy even more nervous. "Um... hi, I'm Amy. I'm here for the 2:30 interview." 

Story: Imposter Syndrome. Chapter 3.

By Jackie J

After their extended break, financed by the famous Jennifer Forbes of course, the household staff had all returned to maintain the upkeep of Doctor James’s residence, two housemaids and the cook.

Jen was now restricted to the top floor for the completion of her maid training, the top floor, being isolated and retained for patients staying at the Doctors residence for specialised treatments. Off limits for the domestic staff. The room Jen now occupied much nicer than her previous accommodation. Gone the old clothing and only two high quality cleaning smocks remained. Jen’s closet now boasting smart, indeed pretty maid’s dresses, these to be worn for formal events, and smart skirts and blouses for general wear. Her underwear although plain fitted well. Stockings and smart low-heeled shoes along with lace trimmed aprons and tiara caps completed this new maid’s workwear.

Jen deserved her promotion from cleaner to housemaid, Miss Ruskin had told her she did. and if she worked hard and trained well, she would soon be working in the household proper. Jen had no thoughts other than her duties and the new skills she must learn to be a perfect housemaid. Jen had been given selected illustrated literature to study, concerning maids work, and from her low base of cleaner, she had admired the pictures of the smartly dressed maids.

Jen had been looking forward to her first day wearing her new uniform, but Olga found her sad with evidence of tears staring into the dressing table mirror.

“What is wrong Jen, tell me.”

Caption: The Lady of the House

The Lady of the House

by AndiJF

 "You not get away with this! You trick me to meet all the local lady in this uniform, but I the mistress of the house, and you just my maid!"

"My dear, now they have seen you as a maid, no one here will ever believe that you, an Oriental, are anything more than my servant, or that I, a white woman wearing your elegant and expensive clothes, could not be your mistress. Just look in any mirror if you doubt me. I think we’ve found our proper roles in life at last!

Zhou Lusi, an educated but orphaned Chinese girl, met and fell in love with an older English trader, James Cavendish. Eventually, they married, and Lusi took the name Lucy Cavendish, but their happy life was shattered when the chaos of the Boxer Rebellion erupted. James decided to leave China with Lucy, taking her English maid Abigail with them. More tragedy struck when James died of a heart attack on the voyage to England, and Lucy found herself alone in a foreign land, speaking little English, with only her maid for support, but Abigail secretly resented and schemed against her mistress.

Story: Imposter Syndrome. Chapter 2.

by Jackie J

Chapter 2

Taken back to the room, that she had been told would be her own, Miss Ruskin left Jen to her thoughts, on the assurance that she would be back shortly to supervise her first day a cleaner at Doctor James’s residence.

Jennifer sat on the bed not knowing whether to laugh or cry at the absurdity of her situation. She had been told there would be role play, but this?  Jen, she was to be Jen a cleaner. Being told to strip like she had, and actually doing it in front of Samantha, Whoops, Mistress, my Mistress? Really?  This Ruskin woman, she was odd when I arrived, a brute of a woman, no messing with her for sure.

Jennifer inspected the plainly decorated en suite room she had been allocated, basic and small. A shrug of the shoulders and a wry smile looking in the closet and drawers. What did she expect? Plain underwear, and an assortment of unfashionable and well-worn clothing was all she found. Jennifer ran her fingers across the fabric of the cheap nylon overalls, that hung on a rail by the bathroom door and inhaled their industrial scent. The odour filling her senses, Jennifer felt that same comforting calm and humbling weakness she had felt earlier with Doctor James, her Mistress. The temptation was too great, and having taken it from the end of the rail she stepped into the primrose overall and fastened the large buttons. Roomy, long sleeved with its hem to her lower calf, Jen reached for one of the turbans from the rail and knotted it in place. Having volunteered herself into her workwear and staring into the wall mirror she hardly recognised herself. Jennifer, filled with a not unpleasant numbness, stumbled back to the bed, and sat down heavily with panting breath.

Calming a little, she smiled to herself, “Conditioning”, my goodness, whatever this conditioning is it is working on me. The feelings she had just experienced, staring into the mirror, the same, although more so, more real than those she had felt earlier in the room with Doctor James. In that moment, much like before, she was Jen, accepted she was Jen it was Jen the cleaner that stared back at her. Fleeting, those feelings and emotions may have been, they were liberating, intoxicating and desirous.

Jennifer had not lost touch with reality, not yet she knew who she was, but being Jen, a cleaner, was such a safe place wasn’t it, and all she deserved, Doctor James had told her that. Doctor James was her Mistress now, odd but the connotations of that title, Mistress, of ownership, of being owned offered its own yet complimentary sense of sanctuary, a safe and welcome sanctuary away from the judgemental criticism, imagined, perceived or actual.

Story: Imposter Syndrome. Chapter 1.

By Jackie J

Leaving the offices of leading psychiatrist and psychotherapist Doctor James, Jennifer was relieved in some way, but also a little perturbed. With her Trench coat belt fastened, its collar up, dark glasses in place and a headscarf tugged tight, Jennifer was confident that no one would recognise her whilst she made her way back to the car that she had rented. She couldn’t have risked arriving in her own car, with its personalised number plate. Her easily recognised car, parked outside London’s renowned psychiatric clinic, would inevitably lead to awkward questions by the seemingly ever present and eager paparazzi. Miss Jennifer Forbes, known to millions, to be the confident and assertive consumer champion, who graced their television screens twice weekly, was in fact, suffering a crisis of identity, of self-worth and self-doubt, to believe herself undeserving of all she was, and all she had.

 Things had come to a head, following the publication of a critical article in the media by the reviewer Connie Black. Jennifer had already been, whilst she hid it well, emotionally distressed for weeks. She had to do something, and she had, visiting the highly regarded doctor, Samantha James.

Now at least she had a name for what she was suffering from, but a cure? She would of course follow what Miss James had told her to do, before she was to return the following week, but failed to see how this would help.

Sat in the small rental car Jennifer could not fully relax. She would not feel secure, safe even, until she was back in her apartment, it never used to be like this. Outgoing and friendly, she welcomed publicity, meeting people on the streets who recognised her but, since the judgemental article by Connie Black, all that changed. Used to being an ever present on the social scene, now reluctant to accept invitations. Only attending the most special of occasions, and even then, fearful of betraying her true feelings and emotions, rarely staying long.

Story: The Humbling of Isabel Kinley

By Jane H. Aubrey

The doorbell rang. Isabel was upstairs, listening to loud music, listlessly doing her homework. Kate went to answer it; she wore a neat grey sweater with the sleeves rolled up, a calf-length floral skirt, and a smart, freshly ironed hunter-green apron. It was Tom. ‘Good evening, sir,’ she beamed, and he gave her a long kiss before she helped him out of his coat and hung up his scarf. He sat on the sofa in the living room and Kate brought a tray with a glass of red wine, before kneeling down and carefully taking off his shoes, which she would clean and buff later. Then she looked up at him and waited, peacefully. He unzipped his fly and Kate took him in her mouth, keeping her hands neatly folded behind her back as Tom preferred, while he sipped his wine. After she had brought him off, she kneeled back; ‘Thank you, sir. May I do anything else for you?’

‘No, darling. Just get on with dinner.’