"I'm Abigail. Abigail Melissa Kensington."
"Would you please sit down?" I pointed at the couch. She sat, wrapping the robe around her.
"Do you have other clothes in the car? That dress won't dry for hours."
"No. I wasn't coming for a visit. I was headed for Lake Arrowhead and got lost. I'm supposed to be at a party." The frustration she felt was evident in her voice. It wasn't that she blamed me for any of her bad day. I was just handy.
"You're sixty miles from Arrowhead."
"I know that now! The woman at the diner told me how to get there but in the rain I made a wrong turn and ended up here."
"Now that you are here, you have decisions to make."
"Oh?"
"You can choose to stay here with me or you can get back in your car and wait out the storm there. Staying with me gives you the opportunity to make another choice. You can rent my bedroom and sleep there by yourself or we can share the bed. If you choose sharing the bed you get to make another choice, with sex or without."
"I don't even know you!"
"Easy Ma'am. Let me finish before you start choosing. If you stay here in the cabin until the storm ends the rent is five hundred dollars, cash. You stay dry, warm and fed. If you go to your car you will likely be there for three days. If you rent my bedroom, alone, it will be another five hundred. That's for the duration of the storm. If you share the bed with me it's a reduction of two hundred fifty from the rent. If you have sex with me the rent stays just as I said and I pay you two hundred per ejaculation. Now, think it over and let me know what you decide."
"That's outrageous! This cabin isn't worth five hundred dollars."
"That wasn't five hundred a night. It's five hundred for the duration of the storm and it includes food. Say the storm lasts three days, which is what the weather guy said on the news. That's one-seventy a night. For another one-seventy a night you can sleep in my bed. The nearest motel is eight miles away, back down the road you came in on. A long walk in this weather, but it's your choice. If you choose to have sex with me I give you two hundred every time I ejaculate. In three days you could make money on the deal. These are your choices."
At that moment lightning slammed into the ground pretty close to the cabin. The ground shook, the sound was deafening and Abigail screamed. Seconds later the smell of burnt air reached us.
"Ok. I'll stay here with you. I'll sleep on the couch. You can keep your bedroom." She spoke as if speaking to a servant who suddenly had some power and she had a bad taste in her mouth from even saying the words. I didn't speak. I did go to the bathroom and closed the door behind me. She had left the bathroom a mess. My brush wasn't in the place where it stays, the shower glass had not been wiped down, the shampoo bottle was sitting with the cap off. I opened the door and said, "Abigail, I do not know where you were trained but this is unacceptable. I let you use my bathroom and you made a mess. You will clean it and you will clean it now!"
"I did not make a mess." She came to the bathroom and I pointed out what she had done.
"This is my home. If you use my things you will restore them to how and where they were before your intrusion. Do it now, please." I went back and sat by the fire. A minute or so later she came and sat at the other end of the couch.
"I did it." She glared at me as she spoke.
"Thank you."
Another flash of lightning and another scream. "Why are you so mean to me?"
"You have been rude towards me since we met. I have treated you with kindness and concern. How should I treat you?"
"I have not been rude."
"When I first saw you I tipped my hat and said, "Evening Ma'am." You didn't say or respond in any way. In my world that's rude."
"When was that? I don't remember ever seeing you until you were standing outside my car."
"When you walked into Dinah's. I was on my way out. Then when I asked you if you wanted to come in and get dry you responded with sarcasm. That's rude. You disrespected my home by attempting to walk on my clean floors dripping water and mud. That's rude. Just how should I treat you?"
"You have no idea who I am, do you?"
"Yes. I know exactly who you are. You are a scared, stranded woman in my home, wearing my robe and whoever you were six hours ago doesn't matter at all. You could have a thirty room mansion somewhere, ten servants, eight cars and millions of dollars in the bank. None of that helps you a damn bit. And, I'm getting tired of you. Do you even have the five hundred dollars you agreed to pay me?"
"It's in my purse."
"And where is your purse?"
"In my car!"
"You have five hundred, in cash?"
"Not in cash. A credit card."