Excerpt of The Arrangement 4 by Abby Weeks

The staircase in April’s house was made of a light marble
imported from Italy personally by Herb Masterson. It was
beautiful and expensive but hadn’t been designed with drunk
women in mind. On their way up, Midge slipped on a step and
April almost fell over her. They were laughing so hard they
barely made it to the top.

–Carla, Midge called as loudly as she could. Don’t make me
come down there and get you.

April had a slightly sick feeling in the pit of her stomach
as she thought of Carla hearing them. The poor maid was
innocently doing her work somewhere in the house and now she
would hear Midge calling her drunkenly from the bedrooms.
Carla was a good worker, about Midge’s age, and April
realized she knew almost nothing about her. She didn’t even
know if Carla was married, whether she had kids, how she’d
gotten her job as a maid. All she knew was that she sounded
Mexican and wasn’t bad looking with dark eyes and light
brown skin.

Despite April’s sympathy, even while feeling a little guilty
already, there was a naughty thought growing in the back of
her mind and she was dying to act on it. She’d been through
so much in the past few weeks, she’d been utterly humiliated
on so many occasions in front of so many different people
that she just felt a lustful sort of recklessness in the pit
of her stomach. She got a terrible thrill from the thought
of making Carla do some of the same sexual favors she had
been forced to do for the other women. She found that she
was eagerly anticipating what Midge would come up with for
Carla to do.

They got to the top of the stairs and April led the way to
the master bedroom. Midge followed her and bumped into a
small table just inside the door, knocking over a crystal
vase that April had bought when she was out shopping with
Mark.

Midge started giggling uncontrollably and April could tell
she was completely drunk.

–Sorry, she said and flung herself onto the bed with her
legs and arms sprawled out.

April looked at her. Midge was a mess. Her dress was short
and black and had looked so elegant when she’d arrived just
a few hours before. Now it was bunched up around her waist
showing clearly the two toned cheeks of her bottom. April
rolled her eyes and fell on the bed next to her.

–Move over, she said to Midge.

Midge had obviously had too much to drink and April thought
she was going to fall asleep where she lay. She was a little
relieved. She’d been excited at the idea of playing sexual
games with her servant but she knew it was the wrong thing
to do and she wasn’t at all sure she was ready to follow
Midge and Kit and Charmaine down that path. Those women were
constantly being used for sex by the husbands in the
arrangement and they seemed to cope with it by forcing their
servants to perform sexual favors for them. It was a power
game and April had the feeling she’d regret getting involved
in it. Being used by those above her was one thing but
taking the same liberties against a defenseless servant was
quite another.

If she and Midge humiliated Carla like they’d been joking
about there would be nothing to separate her from Kit or
Charmaine. She’d have become them.

She looked at Midge and decided to just leave her there on
the bed. She could take a guest room. It seemed fitting
given that Midge had been the one who’d shared the bed with
Walter last. She pulled back the sheets for Midge.