Amor Prohibetur Ch. 18

"You are too young to be retired." Lily commented, as she went to run her finger on the lamps and tables to check for dust. "What do you like to drink?"

"You mean right now?" Nick asked. "I don't know. Water with a touch of lemon, maybe?"

"I will bring it for you." Lily decided.

"You don't have to do that." Nick said, getting to his feet.

"This is my job." Lily replied, her shapely hips wagging slightly as she walked.

Man, his wife was going to be pissed when she saw Lily, Nick understood. Royally pissed. He sat down and tried to calm his thoughts. Would Val hit the roof if he told her about the maid right away, or would she be angrier if she showed up on her day off and suddenly found Lily in their kitchen?

The maid came back with two glasses, setting one down for Nick and sipping from the other. "This is water with a squeeze of lemon, a little honey and only a pinch of salt. Is it good for you? Now I will clean. Because you have nothing else to watch, you can look at me while I clean."

Nick wondered what his brother had told that woman about him. It looked as if Lily was doting on him a little bit too much. Maybe that's what housemaids were supposed to do, except he'd never had a personal maid before.

He tried to keep his eyes away from her, but they always seemed to be heading back that way on their own. Nick's wife had a svelte figure with apple-size breasts and slender hips, but this Lily had curves. Her breasts were bigger, her ass was bigger, and her thighs had a lot of meat on them. While Val had a very pretty, very feminine face, Lily looked more like a hot, aggressive biker chick.

When Lily finished dusting the living room, she turned to face Nick. "Come with me to the other rooms. You can watch me clean them."

"I really don't think I have to." He shrugged.

"You must." She insisted. "I don't want you to say something is missing later, because I am no thief. Bring your water with you."

Nick followed Lily up the stairs and into Matt's bedroom. She picked up the clothes Matt had strewn about, assuming they were dirty, and put them in a pile by the door. She made Matt's bed next, before opening up his curtains to let sunshine in. Lastly, Lily went to do her dusting.

"You've worked as a maid before?" Nick asked.

"Oh, yes, for many years." Lily nodded. "I have cleaned the houses of very rich people in the past, before I started my work at the market. I don't like cleaning for younger men, because they always want to put their hands on me. The same thing happens when I clean for old men, but at least the old men don't become angry when I say no to them."

Nick wondered if that was a hint for him not to make any advances on her. That was okay, as he wasn't planning to. It made him feel guilty enough just to look at Lily's body like that, when his wife was off in another country.

"I hope you two are getting along?" Matt asked, when he got home later.

Nick and Lily were in the living room then, with the maid waiting for Nick to speak first. He said, "Yeah, we're doing fine. Lily did a great job, considering we don't have a whole lot for her to clean with."

"Nick will take me to the store tomorrow." Lily added. "We will buy the right supplies."

"The house isn't too big?" Matt kidded.

"Oh, no." Lily answered. "I've cleaned houses much bigger than this one before. If I'm not needed, I can begin to make supper for us."

"Sure." Matt nodded, prompting the woman to stride off.

"I can't believe that." Nick said. "She actually waited for you to dismiss her."

"That's what she's supposed to do." Matt said.

Dinner consisted of halibut basted with garlic butter, and a side of seasoned rice.

The conversation around the table focused partly on what the men had done for a living before retiring, without mentioning the lottery winnings. The brothers also asked Lily a lot of questions about her background. She was forthcoming and honest, as if she was a dinner date more than an employee. Lily was thirty-six, a decade younger than Nick. She'd been a dancer, a model and an aspiring actress, up until first one man and then a second had gotten her pregnant, before both men promptly abandoned her. That had taken place when Lily was in her twenties. For the last ten years, she'd worked as a housekeeper for the local politicians, while her mother and aunts took care of her two kids for her.

"I have one girl and one boy." Lily said. "They are twelve and ten. I tell the boy not to get any women pregnant if he is not ready to have a child, and I tell the girl not to sleep with any men until she is married. I have to tell them now when they are young. If they are fifteen or sixteen, it may be too late. I don't want anyone to take advantage of them the way I was."

Interested in her life story, Nick and Matt listened to her until it got late into the evening.

"I'll give you a ride home." Matt said. "Will you come by tomorrow morning?"

"If course I will!" Lily piped up. "You have a very nice house!"

"How are things going?" Nick asked his wife, when they were talking on the phone that night.

"Work is fine." Val said, curtly.

"That sounds like things aren't going so well at your mother's."

Val huffed. "Renata keeps bugging me for money. She's turning my mother and one of my sisters against me now. I am getting this close to telling my mother how Renata tried to seduce you. I'll say it when my mother and Renata are both in the same room, so my mother will see what stupid lie Renata comes up with. Now my mother is asking for money so she can turn around and give it to Renata!"

"You don't have to stay there and take that shit from them." Nick said. "I miss you, honey! I want you here!"

Val was quiet for a few seconds. "Let me think about it. If my family keeps acting this way... I don't know. Maybe I will leave my job. I know there are a lot of hotels in Rosarito. Maybe they'll hire me faster because I'm bilingual."

"I have to tell you something." Nick said, bracing himself. "My brother hired a part-time maid."

"Are you joking?"

"No, she just started today."

"Did he tell you he was going to hire her?"

"No, he didn't."

"Then tell him he can't have a maid."

Nick took a deep breath and sighed.

"If you can't tell him, I will." Val resolved. "I'm driving down there tomorrow night, anyway. What does this maid look like?"

"Uh, she's... she's an older woman. She's a little big around the middle."

"Your brother wouldn't hire a woman like that." Val replied.

"How can you say that?"

"Because your brother is a bachelor with money." Val reasoned. "He doesn't need a maid to clean his one room. The only reason he would hire a woman is if he wanted to sleep with her. She's pretty, isn't she?"

"Yeah, I guess she is."

"If you touch that woman, I'm going to kill you." Val threatened. "Are you listening to me, Nick?"

"What makes you think I want to touch her?"

"You and your brother like the same kinds of women."

That statement caught Nick by surprise. He'd never considered that before. "Well, I'm not planning on touching her. I just want you home with me."

"You'd better not touch her! I'm not kidding, Nick!"

The next day went by quickly. It was a blur of a Friday. Lily came in early to make breakfast, giving no time for Nick to talk to his brother about Valerie's upcoming wrath. Nick did have a lot of time to think that day, prompting him to an extra long workout in the property's fitness center, and an extra long stay in the sauna. Unfortunately, nothing presented itself to answer his dilemma. Val and Matt were probably going to have a very ugly confrontation later.

By that time, Nick was becoming a regular at the health center. There were other regulars: married women whose husbands were at their jobs, single women who lived or worked in the complex, and even a few gay men whose job, basically, was to keep fit for their affluent lovers. People were chatty with Nick before, when he and his wife had come in to work out together. Now they knew him, and seeing that he was there alone so frequently, a lot of the women were comfortable enough to rub their arms on his, while they peppered him with questions about his private life.

Two women in their fifties and a young gay man dragged Nick into the yoga and dance room, mostly because the instructor had such a small class that day. It wasn't an event he'd normally attend, but since it took his mind off his worries, he went ahead and did the stretching, the meditating, and yes, even some dancing where he had to kick his knees up to his chest to the tune of hip hop music. That's why he stayed in the sauna so long, after the class was over. He was bushed and had the rest of the class around him to keep him company.

Nick went home when it was time for his brother to drive by. He drove Matt back to the fish market, while he took Lily to a cleaning supplies store. The carefree woman picked out the items she needed to give the house a professional cleaning. Apparently, Matt had mentioned that Val was coming, and that she might not approve of the whole maid arrangement. Lily said she'd try very hard to make sure that Val would like her.

On the drive back, Nick figured out what was going on. Matt was looking for a casual relationship with a woman, after only going on sporadic dates back in San Diego, for the last couple of years. Lily understood this, and she was going along with it. At the same time, Lily was giving Nick every reason to want to keep her around.

Lily cleaned the windows on the first floor, using her new stepstool to get up to the very tops. Nick watched her, taking in her curvy form as he had the day before. Lily was using him in a way, by letting Nick ogle her sexy body. If his brother ever got to the point where he couldn't decide if he wanted to stick with Lily or not, Nick might be the person whose influence could sway things one way or another. In the same way that Lily was hoping to become invaluable to Matt, she was trying to become invaluable to Nick.

"Matt's room doesn't have that many windows." Lily said, taking up her cleaning bucket with all sorts of new things in it. "I'm going to clean your windows next. You can come to watch me, if you'd like."

Lily stood before him, setting down her stepstool to run her hands through her sweaty hair. It was a sensual move, Nick saw, where she lifted her chin and closed her eyes.

"Oh, it's hot!" She exclaimed, before she got hold of the stool again. "Come up the stairs with me, Nick."

Lily strode off, waggling her hips a little more than the last time.

That was for his benefit, Nick realized, as he was the only other person in the house. After a few moments of deliberation, he gave in. He trotted up the stairs and found a good chair to sit on. Once Nick dragged that chair and put it before the large panes of glass, he sat and took in the simple, sexy pleasure of watching Lily doing her work.

Valerie arrived in a guarded mood, but by then, Matt had gotten dropped off and had taken Lily out of the house. The suspicious woman found her husband at his desk, in the third floor bedroom. Nick was going over a few requests for money, but this time they were from his side of the family.

"Where are they?" She asked.

"Matt took Lily home." Nick revealed. "He said we should get dressed up, because he wants to take us all dancing. I don't know if I'm up to it."

"Why not?"

"The people in the fitness center made me take part in some of the yoga classes and the zumba class." Nick chuckled. "It's because the class was so small. I'm already feeling very sore because of that." He stood up and went to put his hands on Val's shoulders. "And no, I'm not sore because I've been screwing around behind your back."

"You'd better not be!"

Nick kissed his wife. "I've never done that before, have I?"

"We've never lived apart like this!" She shot back, embracing him. "You don't know what it's like at my mother's house. All day Renata is saying that you're cheating on me, and here you are doing nothing at home all week!"

"I'm not exactly doing nothing, okay?" Nick defended himself. He went back to his desk to retrieve a few notes he'd written. "Look at this. These are drafts I'm preparing to send out. I'm asking the gasoline company and the electric company if they'd like for me to evaluate their security departments. Matt told Ernesto from the fisherman's guild that I managed security people at my last job, and now Ernesto wants me to take over the staff he has watching over the market and docks. Those people weren't even trained properly! I've been an analyst, a consultant and a field supervisor, so I know how to do all that. It wouldn't even be full-time work! I'll drive around like my boss used to, checking up on my people and making sure everything is going smoothly." He went back to his desk. "Later, I want you to take a look at these wish lists. They're from my relatives. You're going to help me decide what I should and shouldn't pay for."

"I don't want to see any papers." Val went to him, hugging him again. "Let's go dancing with your brother. It's been a long week for me."

Nick's life in Rosarito was so different than what he'd had in San Diego. Over there, he would be trimming hedges and cutting grass, or mending whatever was falling apart in the house. Here in Mexico, he was only doing a couple of hours' worth of work all day. For the last two days, he'd been watching a curvy maid wiggling around while she did her cleaning.

"You have it so easy here, don't you?" Val asked him. "I bet you follow that maid around when she's here. You try to look up her skirt, don't you?"

"She doesn't wear a skirt. She wears shorts. Matt hasn't gotten around to buying her a uniform yet."

"But you look at her, don't you?" Val pinched his love handle, prompting them both to start wrestling. "Tell me you don't look at her!"

Nick pushed his wife onto the bed, where he lay on her and kissed her until she caved in and started kissing back.

"You need to be here with me." He said. "I can't stand it when you're gone."

"I can't stand to be away from you either." Val admitted. "But if I live here, I won't be able to see my family anymore. I want to see my mother every day. Is that so much to ask for, Nick, to want to see my mother so I can make sure she's all right? I'm not like you. I can't walk away from my relatives and only see them once or twice a year."

Nick kissed her and put his hands on her. Things were starting to get steamy when Val pushed her husband away.

"I came straight here, so I didn't have time to shower." Val said. "Besides, your brother will show up soon with his little maid. I think you should get off of me so I can take my shower. We haven't gone out dancing in a long time, Nick. The music is calling us!"

Val was as taken aback with Lily as Nick had been. Nick was even given a pause, as he'd never seen the tall, shapely woman dressed up before. She looked gorgeous with her hair fixed up and a pink carnation set next to her ear. Lily wore a form-fitting blue dress that showed her curves and left her arms and most of her chest bare.

"You look like a movie star." Val mentioned, as the two couples walked into the lobby of an expensive hotel. They were heading to the hotel restaurant first, and to the dance club later.

"I wanted to be an actress once." Lily admitted, once they were seated. "It didn't work out because every director I ever met wanted me to go to bed with him. Matt told me that you've been a maid for many years. So have I! I'm sure you have a lot of good stories to tell me about your job."

To Nick's eyes, it looked like Lily was trying hard to impress Val.

"I'll tell you one of my stories." Lily leaned closer to the shorter woman. "I was once the maid for a famous drug dealer here in Mexico. Oh, my god! One day his enemies showed up and started shooting at the house! We had to run into the basement to hide until it was all over! Can you imagine?"

"One time at my hotel," Val started up, as if she'd known Lily forever. "This man tried to push his wife over the balcony. I was outside fixing the chairs around the pool, and then I look up to the tenth floor and there's the woman about to come down on top of my head. I said the same thing: Oh, my god! And then I called the building engineer with my radio and told him what was going on. They had to break the door down to stop that man before he killed that woman!"

That was all it took for the two women to click together. They spent the rest of the dinner trading war stories, before they finished eating and went to the club.

"It's time to wake up, you sleepy heads!" Lily announced the next morning, when she stepped into Nick's bedroom.

Nick was already sitting up, bare-chested and happy to gaze at his wife sleeping next to him. The moment Val stirred herself awake, her first reaction was to cover up, as she too was topless.

Lily set a small tray on top of the nightstand. It carried two cups of coffee. "I'll have breakfast ready in about thirty minutes."

The couple watched the tall beauty strolling her way out.

"Lily, you were an excellent dancer last night." Val called out. "Where did you learn all those dances?"

"I went to a dance academy when I was young." Lily replied. "I told you. The thing I wanted most in my life was to be an actress. I wanted to dance and sing in the movies like the leading ladies did back in the forties and fifties." She scoffed. "Nowadays, all the imbecile directors want is to cast me as a drug dealer's girlfriend. I had a minor role in a soap opera not that long ago. In that one, I kept betraying my drug dealer boyfriend over and over until a rival drug dealer shot me down."

"Why aren't you acting now?"

"Drug dealer soap operas are out of style." Lily shrugged. "All the new soaps have teenage girls as the stars, and all they do is get into arguments with their parents and cry over their boyfriends. I've been told that I don't have a soft face for that kind of show."

Lily made a caricature of an angry face, which set Val to giggling.

"If they want me, they know where they can find me." The woman said, before she left the room.

Val left the bed and hurried over to shut the door, as she didn't want anyone to see her dressed only in her panties. She made her way over to the nightstand, and was soon taking a sip from her coffee. "So we dropped her off at ten last night, and she's back here at seven the next morning, looking as spry as ever."

"She's been punctual every single day." Nick said.

"I've changed my mind about her." Val revealed. "I think Lily is a good match for your brother. I think she'll keep him on his toes."

Breakfast that morning was Huevos A La Mexicana. This meal included scrambled eggs mixed in with onions, peppers and tomatoes, served with slices of avocados on top and a side of chilaquiles, which were tortilla slices baked in tomato sauce.

Once the meal was over, Lily went off to change into her vendor clothing, while Matt spoke with Nick and Val about their plans for later that night. They didn't come to any firm conclusions, before Matt left for the day with Lily.

"I don't think she's playing hard to get." Val theorized later, when the couple was left alone, lounging on third floor patio. "I think Lily likes to be properly seduced."

"That's the kind of woman my brother likes to chase after." Nick agreed. "One that isn't too easy so he'll have to put some effort into getting her. At the same time, Lily is dropping hints that she wants to be chased, so he'll keep chasing her."

"You don't think she's after money?"

"Well, that's debatable." Nick reasoned. "My brother and I never told Lily about how I won the lottery. She thinks we retired after having worked years and years at our jobs, which is basically true in Matt's case. We told her that this house was a lot more affordable than what we could buy in San Diego. I don't think Lily is after money as much as she's looking for stability."