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.