a butler’s outfit.”
Harold. It had to be. The contract that Mr. Weatherton had mentioned was probably in the envelope. I slid the papers out of the envelope as I climbed the stairs to my dorm room. It seemed to be a normal contract for employment…until I reached a paragraph near the end.
The phrases “attend to any and all of Mr. Weatherton’s personal needs” and “agree to face any consequences that Mr. Weatherton deems appropriate for any failure on your part to perform your duties to the satisfaction of Mr. Weatherton” caused my heart to skip a beat. I'd already seen what type of consequences Mr. Weatherton enjoyed. Did he use that type of punishment for all of his employees or had I been the exception?
Mandy had returned to the room while I was downstairs retrieving the package. I said a quick hello and walked to my side of the room and hopped onto the bed to give the contract a more thorough read. On my quick perusal coming up the stairs I had apparently skipped over the section discussing my pay. My eyes practically bugged out when I read the amount listed for weekly pay for personal expenses.
“Holy hell!”
“Hell is the last place I'd consider to be holy.”
Mandy leaned against the end of the floor to ceiling desk and dresser unit that separated our sides of the room. Usually, Mandy was a fairly decent roommate, but she was a bit religious and got offended easily from swear words and anything she considered sacrilegious.
“Sorry,” I replied with a sheepish look on my face. “I guess the shock got the better of me.”
“Shock about what? And how did the interview go yesterday? I didn't get a chance to ask.”
“I got offered a job. This is the contract.”
I held up the papers.
“That's great! Is it going to pay enough for you to stay in school?”
I hadn't told Mandy all of the details of the possible job. She didn't know that one of the components of the deal was that it paid my tuition.
“That's what I was commenting on. The weekly pay amount is much more than I expected. And yes, it's enough for me to stay in school.”
I wasn't going to mention that I would no longer be living in the dorm. I was afraid that just the pay amount would be enough to make her ask questions. Luckily enough, she didn't.
“That's awesome. I'm happy for you.”
“Thanks, Mandy.”
She returned to her side of the room and left me to my thoughts. What did “any and all personal needs” mean? Was I reading too much into that phrase, or did it mean more than just fetching his coffee? And would I receive a spanking akin to the one from yesterday every time I messed up, or did Mr. Weatherton have other punishments floating around in his devious mind?
I knew I had a decision to make. Could I live with myself if those phrases meant something more than what was expected from your average personal assistant and I took the job? Would I survive if I didn't?
In my heart I knew I was willing to do almost anything to finish college. I kept telling myself that if for some reason “personal needs” extended to matters of a sexual nature it wouldn't be the same as prostituting myself. After all, Mr. Weatherton was just one man, not many. With my stomach fluttering like it had butterflies, I grabbed a pen and walked over to Mandy's side of the room.
“Can you witness this for me?”
“Sure!”
I scrawled my signature and the date on the lines provided and handed the last page to Mandy for her to do the same. As I sealed it into the provided return envelope, I had a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach that I'd just bitten off way more than I could chew.
5 .
The last month of school flew by in a blur of late night studying, library trips, and working out with Harold my move into the Weatherton mansion. I didn't have much to take with me. Most of my meager personal belongings left by my parents were in storage. After I took my last exam, I finished packing up my dorm room and checked