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Home Raker is a “thriller burlesque” novella in progress, spawned from vitriol, and serialized at a diabolically measured pace to allow for proper execution of plot elements and intrigue. And to torture you, obviously.
If you can’t STAND the pacing of this project, you can always return when it’s complete. But I hope some of you will choose to bear witness to its development in real time. It’s going to be messy. But that’s half the fun!
This story is stationed behind my paywall because it’s a true work-in-progress. Translation: it’s as likely to be a raging success as an epic failure. It also contains naughty bits that some readers may find offensive. Think sex, drugs, murder, profanity, melodrama, and sex.
If you’re a FOREVER subscriber and you’d “rather not” partake in this offering, no worries. You can toggle off the Home Raker section in your subscription settings to avoid receiving future chapters in your inbox. 💜
As for the rest of you brave souls, I say come as you are, stay if you please, let loose, go hard, and embrace the beautiful mess that is Home Raker.
Previously, on Home Raker:
We met Celeste Martinvilleburgson, repressed trophy wife of Senator/Dud Rutherford Martinvilleburgson III, in the throes of grief after discovering her lover/landscaper, Harold Raker, murdered by rake impalement on her back lawn.
We learned that Celeste is smothered by wealth, can’t cry, has shitty friends, and is sexually unfulfilled by her husband, who has been limp-thrusting his way through housekeepers like it’s his job.
We were teased about an estranged friendship between Celeste and a woman named Winona, who may or may not have a current connection to Ruth given that her business card (Nona Sensina: Mortician and Medium) was secured in the pages of Ruth’s high school yearbook.
When we left Celeste, she was waiting for her husband to walk through the door. But before we suffer through that thick layer of marital dissatisfaction and harbored suspicion, let us turn back the clock and revisit the moment Celeste first laid thirsty eyes on the taut, tanned physique of one Mr. Harold Raker.
The first.
Content Warning: Palpable sexual tension and brief cunnilingus with plants. This story isn’t going to get LESS outrageous, friends. Read if you dare.
2. Meat Cute (updated 1/8/2024)
Celeste huffs bitterly and barefoot down the stairs. She flings the front door open and is obliterated by a pair of amber brown eyes above a once broken nose over a pair of just moistened lips parted in an impish half-smile set into an amply dimpled cheek. The devastation continues as Celeste’s eyes slide downward to an alluring pasture of sun-bronzed skin under overworked cotton. Two hands, beautifully battered by manual labor, hold a clipboard.
He clears his throat, bringing her gaze back to his face and her mind back to the fact she’s half naked and wet under his.
“Mrs. … uh ...” He squints at the clipboard and bites his lip. “…Martinville…burgson?”
She nods, fearing the only thing that will leave her mouth, if she opens it, is a girlish squeal.
“I’m Harold. Harold Raker. And I’m here to make your world more beautiful.”
It sounds like a line. Celeste rolls her eyes to let him know it isn’t a very good one. Then she deliberately brushes her hair away from her face with her left hand, in case he needs reminding that she’s married. And married well.
He smiles like he knows exactly what she’s doing, and it annoys her.
“So, what, are you a Jehovah’s witness? Or selling girl scout cookies? Or … ” She involuntarily scans his physique and flushes. “Both?”
He laughs and her nipples stand at attention. She crosses her arms defiantly.
“I’m a landscaper,” he says, eying her crossed arms with interest. “Just moved to the area and I’m out canvasing for new clients.”
“We’re not interested,” Celeste says unconvincingly.
“Are you sure?” He raises an eyebrow before turning in a dramatic circle like he’s surveying her property when all he’s really doing is giving her a generous view of his backyard. “I’m very good,” he says facing her again and adjusting the waistband of his cargo shorts.
She considers slamming the door in his face until she remembers the reason she had to answer it. A tremor of jealous rage moves her arms away from her chest.
Let him look.
Ruth bought her bigger breasts “so people would have something to look at.”
So, let him look.
Let him look long and hard.
“Forgive me if I don’t take your word for it,” Celeste says. “Do you have any references?”
“Lots.” He pulls a business card from the clipboard and extends it to her. His fingers are thick, the skin on his knuckles rough and split in more than a few places. She grimaces at his outstretched hand and his face drops, too subtly, at her disapproval.
Cocky.
And young.
She pegs him at about twenty-eight, but something about his energy tells her he’s younger. Twenty-five. Twenty-two, maybe.
As she searches subconsciously for his born-on date, Harold reaches across the space between them and attempts to slide his business card into the breast pocket of her thin robe.
She instinctively slaps his hand away, a move she often dispatched with Ruth, before he completely lost interest in groping her.
“Sorry,” he stammers. “I just … uh … shit, sorry. And for swearing. Fuck. SORRY!” His cheeks turn an alluring shade of pink.
Jesus. Is this kid even legal?
Harold glances hastily to either side of Celeste’s hips and sets the card down on a pedestal to the left of the door. It holds an elaborate, and very unkempt, boxwood topiary. Celeste frowns at it as she picks up the card and turns it over in her hand.
Harold Raker
Personal Landscaper
Here to make your world more beautiful.
The card is simple but professional looking. Rounded corners. Rigid black font on a glossy white background. No logo. Just a small photo of Harold, smiling beside a beautifully landscaped retaining wall. Mountains in the background. He includes his email address, street address, home, work, cell numbers, and social media handles, which seems excessive, but Celeste takes it as a sign.
He’s easy.
To get a hold of.
“We are between landscapers at the moment,” she says, running her thumb over the muscled chest of the business card version of the fully grown man in front of her. He beams at her, and she feels a laugh bubble to the top of her throat. She swallows it. “I’ll have to talk to my husband about it, since he makes all the financial decisions.” Her jaw tightens. Ruth makes all the decisions because their money is really his. Any attempt Celeste has made to earn an income has been stopped in its tracks.
“Well, if it makes your decision any easier, my first job is always pro boner.”
“What?”
“Sorry,” he says, turning pink again. “I meant pro boner. Bono! For fuck’s sake. SORRY! Jesus. Sorry.” He covers his face and this time when the laugh reaches Celeste’s lips, she lets it escape.
Harold keeps his hand over his eyes as he hands Celeste the clipboard.
“If you could just fill out this form, so I know what jobs you’re interested in me taking on, that would be great. Also, you can let me know what time of day is best for me to show up and work.”
“Do people often have a preference?” Celeste asks, reluctantly savoring the warmth Harold’s meaty hands left on the clipboard and pen.
“Some people like to be out of the house when I work. It can get kind of loud sometimes. Some people like to be home. So, they can watch.”
Celeste feels a fluttery tug in her stomach as she firmly checks the box “Anytime” on Harold’s form. “Well … I’m always home. So, it really doesn’t matter to me what time you show up.”
“Good to know,” he says. He smiles underneath his hand, still pressed over his eyes.
Celeste grins freely knowing he can’t see it. “I think you’ve been in timeout long enough.” She cringes internally at her own phrasing. Realizing how much attention it brings to the fact she could be Harold’s mother.
She channels her humiliation into checking more boxes.
He can do a lot.
So many skills.
“Are you a natural redhead?”
Celeste gasps, fearing her robe may have fallen open and revealed more to Harold about her front lawn than she’s comfortable with. Her hand drifts to the area in question and she sighs, relieved to find her secret is safe.
“Why do you ask?” She keeps her eyes on the form even though she’s run out of boxes to check.
“Your skin,” he says softly. “The freckles on your nose. And your green eyes.”
Celeste catches him admiring her in a way she can’t help but feel grateful for. Not many men have seen her this way. Bare faced. Natural. Unaltered. “They look like the eyes of a redhead, I guess.”
She hands back the clipboard. “That’s a very personal question.”
“That you’re not going to answer,” he says grinning over her check marks.
“No, I’m not.” Celeste crosses her arms again. The ebb and flow of genuine comfort she feels with this stranger is unsettling.
“That’s okay. I’ll find out eventually.” He smirks and something snaps in Celeste.
“What is this? Some kind of prank?” Her stomach churns nervously.
Are they watching right now?
Buzzing behind a hedge somewhere, filming the whole scene?
“What? No,” Harold assures her.
“Are you a gigolo?” she presses him. “Is that what this is? Did someone hire you to fuck with me?”
He clears his throat, and his cheeks go rosy again, making Celeste feel like an uptight schoolteacher. He slowly reaches for her hand, the one still holding the business card, and brings it up to her face. Her skin dances ecstatically under his calloused fingers but she keeps herself from letting on. He points at the card and smiles. “Landscaper,” he says. “You can check my references. There’s a list on my website. Not sure I have the skills to be … uh … that other thing you mentioned.”
“A gigolo,” she teases, lowering her arms, and her guard, again.
“Right. That.”
“How old are you, anyway?” Celeste asks.
“Does it matter?”
“No.”
“I’m twenty-six.”
She makes a face, and he laughs loudly.
“I won’t ask how old you are,” he says. “Because that would be a very personal question.”
“Yes, it would,” Celeste says, pursing her lips to keep from smiling.
Harold hugs the clipboard to his chest, making him appear even younger.
“It was nice to meet you, Mrs… uh …” He peeks down at the form. “Martinvilleburgson.”
The sound of her married name brings her feet back to earth with an unpleasant thud. “You can just call me Celeste,” she says.
“Oh boy,” Harold says. “I don’t know if I can do that. Not yet anyway.”
“Suit yourself,” she says. Her arms return to her chest protectively.
“I’ll start first thing tomorrow if that works for you.”
“Fine. That’s fine.”
“Okay, Mrs. M.” He winks, and she bites her tongue. “I’ll see you soon.”
She nods and turns away quickly before she can wink back.
“Who was at the door?” Ruth asks, tucking his shirt into his waistband as he approaches her in the foyer.
Her smile melts into a scowl.
Ruth is handsome, as all men of means manage to be. Something about a high-end wardrobe and excessive grooming practices gives them an honorary badge of good looks even if their personalities are trash. When Celeste met Ruth in high school, he was gorgeous. Tall and lean. His dark brown hair, now cropped short and streaked with silver, was longer and looser then. He was a heartthrob, a clown, and a rebel. But not the kind that got into any real trouble. He had dreams to chase. Goals to meet. And a sizeable trust fund to spend on whatever he needed make it all happen. No wonder he was such a free spirit. He never had to work for anything in his life.
“New landscaper,” Celeste says curtly, handing him the business card.
Ruth furrows his pronounced brow at the card. Vanity prevents him from wearing the reading glasses he desperately needs. But Celeste expects her husband will only be interested in the photo of Harold. Whether he considers the tanned, hard-muscled, young laborer a threat to his empire.
“Huh,” he says, turning the card over and then handing it back. Celeste clenches, imagining what that hand was up to while she was interviewing Harold on the porch. She swears she can hear Talia packing her bags three rooms away. “What’s this punk going to cost me?” Ruth sighs his concession.
“I don’t know,” Celeste says. “But he’s going to do his first job pro bono.” She stifles a laugh at the inside joke she will now cherish with Harold to spite her husband. And because it felt nice to have an inside joke with someone that she wasn’t the butt of.
Ruth pauses to look at Celeste. His eyes dance over her hair, her face, the swell of her designer breasts. Her body can’t help but warm ever so slightly at his attention. “You might have made yourself look presentable before you answered the door,” he says cooly.
Her insides burn. “This is what I look like, Ruth,” she says, holding his apathetic gaze just long enough to feel nauseated by it. “Or did you forget?”
She shoulders past her husband and stomps dramatically up the winding staircase. She slams her bedroom door shut and chokes back a sob as she disrobes and moves angrily to the ceiling-high window facing the garden.
She stops abruptly, her left hand on the thick, sound-dampening curtain beside her. Harold is passing through the rose garden beneath her window. She watches as he stops beside an overgrown bush filled with stubbornly tight, rare Phoenix rose buds. He grasps one bud between two fingers and begins to gently coax the petals open with his thumb.
Celeste’s shivers as her bare breasts meet the cool glass in front of her, but she doesn’t pull back. She watches intently, pressed against the wall of her enclosure, her laser-enhanced vision catching every stimulating stroke of Harold’s thumb over the struggling rose.
“Some people like to watch,” he’d said.
Her pulse quickens as he kneels down and leans closer to inspect the flower’s petals, causing her own to warm and bloom as if his attention were on her.
Her clean, bare, freckled skin.
Her exposed secret.
Her hand drifts to the area in question as Harold boldly slides his tongue between the petals of the rose. Rousing it. Persuading it.
Daring it to fulfil its potential.
Celeste’s eyes flutter closed as she comes to fruition. She grips the curtain, threatening to pull it down from its iron rod with her climactic strength.
When she opens her eyes, she’s looking through a fog. Her hot breath condensed to a veil of dew on the glass in front of her.
Harold is gone.
But through the film of quenched heat on her window, she can see the one rose, his first conquest, in full bloom.
Celeste’s green eyes widen in admiration.
Beautiful.
"Palpable sexual tension and brief cunnilingus with plants."
"She nods, fearing the only thing that will leave her mouth, if she opens it, is a girlish squeal."
"Jesus. Is this kid even legal?"
“That’s okay. I’ll find out eventually.” He smirks and something snaps in Celeste.
This is really funny stuff, Meg. Who would not want to subscribe to this? Such a great escape into fantasy land.
I am not a reader who strays into books that might be called erotic as a rule any more, but I found the humor and the descriptions in this section quite delightful. One tiny caveat. From the beginning having the husband's name be Clinton kept taking me out of the story, finding myself looking for connections to the former president. For me the distraction in giving him this name outweighed the humor. Otherwise, thanks for continuing to share your work.