SubscribeStar Story: The Tutor, Part 36

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Part 36

Was it too late to change my mind?

Probably. The laundry room only had one exit, and Trixie had just covered it with both herself and the door. While it’s not like I was particularly trapped by something so simple, the thought of stepping out and changing my mind felt daunting nonetheless. I had already agreed, hadn’t I?

Trixie was just a maid. It didn’t make any sense for her to boss me around in such a way. Except that logic only held up when I was in tutor mode. Since I was helping the blonde with chores, she was technically the more experienced girl and the one who had been in charge pretty much since I arrived. Without Annabelle around, I had subjected myself to helping out to the point where it was impossible to backpedal. Could I really reject the uniform when I had just made everyone’s beds in the house? In the back of my mind, I knew that ‘trying’ was a slippery slope. However, I was terrible as ever when it came to confrontation, and now there was some time pressure on top of that. The longer I stood around in the laundry room, the worse I looked whether I caved or pushed back. Either way, it was wasting Trixie’s time when she had work to do.

I had been so focused on the uniform itself, I hadn’t stopped to consider what it would feel like to strip down. It wasn’t lost on me that this was the /second/ time I’d be partially undressed at Annabelle’s place, and the simple act of lifting the hem of my blouse was enough to give me flashbacks of her hands doing the same to me yesterday. I had intentionally worn a more proper outfit today. Nicer clothes would hopefully create a visual that hinted that the classy combination should remain intact. God knows I was confusingly weak when it came to the redhead’s games, so I needed every little advantage possible. Yes, I was still tempted, but a night of restless sleep had eventually led to the simple facts I planned on telling myself again and again–Annabelle was eighteen. She was still in high school. I was supposed to be her tutor and nothing more.

If I could internally repeat those, especially the middle one that made the whole thing more taboo and inappropriate despite how we objectively weren’t that different in age, maybe I could get our train back on its proper track. Unlock the collar. Reset the dynamic. Maybe even start getting paid for tutoring again, instead of simply blocking Bridget from the job.

Of course, I had already failed on several counts. Despite it happening in Annabelle’s absence, I was still helping Trixie with chores like I was partially a maid, too. That was being more than a tutor. I was also worried about how it might look if I was dressed as subserviently as the young blonde when Annabelle arrived. All the more reason to simply ‘try it on,’ rather than letting it last longer than that. My pretty outfit was also being undone, although I tried to take some solace in the fact that the maid uniform would be just as difficult to take off.

Had it really come to this? Relying on clothes to ward off Annabelle’s advances? I couldn’t possibly be that easy.

“Ms. Moore? Do you need any assistance?” Trixie called through the door.

Wait, what? I had barely gotten my top off. “No! I’m fine,” I hurriedly answered. The last thing I needed was her coming back in and fussing over me when I hadn’t been given a chance to try on my own. Feeling more rushed, I made short work of yanking down my skirt and slowing down just enough to step out of it without tripping myself up while the fabric was around my ankles.

It was my last chance to potentially slam on the brakes. As I stood in the laundry room in just panties and a bra, I nervously glanced between my removed outfit and the maid uniform Trixie had found for me. Was it too late to just put my clothes back on? They were right there, and suddenly the closed door was more a benefit than a disadvantage. No one was stopping me from simply getting dressed again. And why was I about to dress up like a fucking maid? Because Annabelle was late and not respecting my time.

But I couldn’t leave. I had literally skipped classes and bailed on my classmates in the name of removing the collar that was still locked around my neck. The permanent marker would wash off eventually, and I had already resigned myself to the fact that it would take a while for the thick, black words to fade. I’d probably end up buying some concealer and maybe some other make-up on the way home that was capable of hiding that much surface area for at least a few hours at a time. The collar, however, was as complicated as ever. I kept coming back to the idea of scarves and/or turtlenecks, but I was still nervous that wouldn’t be enough. One wrong shift, and someone might see.

It would have been just as easy to pull on my original clothes before Trixie walked in, but her voice was enough to kick me into gear. Continuing the original task I had started, I pulled on the simple dress. The buttons in the front made it clear how it was supposed to be done up, and I had also seen Trixie enough times to have a general sense of how it was to be worn. The dress was black save for a rounded white collar and white cuffs on the ends of the short sleeves, and the same shade of white made up the majority of the skirt-like apron that I tied around my lower half once the main part of the outfit was settled on my body.

Even without a mirror, I could tell how unflattering the uniform was on my more petite body. The cut of the dress made my chest look smaller than usual, and the apron looked more waitress-like than anything. Maid or waitress, looking down at my own body and then picturing Trixie wearing the same outfit was enough for me to imagine how I must look. Small and subservient, and nowhere near as nice as I looked before. There was no way I could let Annabelle see me like this. Whatever authority I had managed to cling to in the face of her impossible to describe nature would be stripped away the moment she laid her eyes on me.

Right on cue, Trixie called in again. This time, with a knock. “Mere?”

Without Annabelle around, my annoyance shone through a little more as I snapped back, “It’s Meredith!” Maybe the impossible redhead could constantly get away with the nickname with her constant use of it and effortless dismissals of my correction, but there was no way I was going to let it be a Trixie thing as well. As unnecessarily formal as ‘Ms. Moore’ sounded, I much preferred that in comparison. “And- wait!”

I was about to tell her that I tried the uniform and it didn’t fit, but I didn’t get a chance to get started with the lie. Without knocking this time, she simply opened the door and stepped inside. “Hmm. Looks like it works,” she said. Seeing that I was dressed again and wearing the outfit she left for me, Trixie walked up to me and proceeded to circle around where I was until she was positioned behind me. Without any hesitation, her hands found my hair. “But you shouldn’t be wearing this down. It gets in the way for chores, and you would hate for someone to find a strand in their food.” In one clean motion, she swept up my hair and put it up in a ponytail. “A bun would be preferable, but this is fine for today.”

The only reason I let Trixie touch my hair was because I didn’t want to jerk my head away when her fingers could potentially pull on my locks if she didn’t expect me to move so abruptly. Once the ponytail was done, however, I swiveled on my heel to face her. “Trixie!” I exclaimed. Was she serious right now? It’s not that it would be particularly difficult to get my hair back to normal, but Annabelle’s fucking /maid/ was handling me without even asking. “I tried it on, see? Now give me some privacy again so I can change back.” Just because we both worked for Annabelle and her parents didn’t mean that we were at the same level. It wasn’t even that I considered ‘tutor’ better than ‘maid.’ They were just such different jobs!

Annabelle should be the only one capable of telling me what to do . . . within reason.

Trixie scowled at my demand. “You’re fine, Ms. Moore. Help me fold and hang up the rest of the laundry, and then we’ll talk. I’m behind thanks to you.”

Thanks to /me?/ My jaw didn’t actually drop, but it felt like it. Trixie was the one who took the time to retrieve the uniform. I could have been working on my own stuff up in Annabelle’s suite, but Trixie dragged me into making the beds and then through this whole ordeal. Did I ask to dress up like a maid? No. “Trixie-”

“Meredith.” Pausing for a beat to make sure I wasn’t going to interrupt her interruption, she continued with, “You’re collared, aren’t you? Annabelle likes her pets obedient. Do you want me to vouch for you, or not?”

/’What?/’ My jaw might have actually dropped that time around; I wasn’t sure. Obviously the collar was on display ever since arriving, but I had assumed that something like that would stay between me and Annabelle. Not only did it throw me when Trixie brought it up unexpectedly, but the phrase ‘her pets’ implied that this was a common occurrence at the Alodia household where their daughter was involved. Logically, it made sense. Why would the red haired ‘clothes are a construct’ lesbian have a locking collar lying around if she never used it? I had just been too focused on the accessory on my own neck to consider other girls.

Wait, was I wearing a collar former partners had worn?! Not that I was Annabelle’s partner. It was just that . . . I didn’t know what it was, and that was before getting to the other half of Trixie’s reply. Vouching for me. Did I need that from her? And if she didn’t, would the lack of doing so reflect badly on me and give Annabelle an excuse to dangle the key over my head for a little longer?

Again, Annabelle wasn’t even here! Just like the previous night at my apartment, however, I found myself overthinking everything. Only now, I didn’t have all the time in the world. Trixie wasn’t nearly as much of a force as Annabelle was, but there was still the social pressure to come up with a response.

If I wasn’t careful, I could only imagine how long I would be stuck dressed up like a maid. Annabelle or no Annabelle, that’s not what I was . . .

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