When the software industry shipped its work to India and China, I was too old and too expensive to compete for the scraps of software jobs remaining in the US. When I finally realized that my career in that industry was over, I had to find something else to do to bring in some money. I had discovered, during my forced vacation, while looking for work, that I had a talent for, and thanks to the teachings of my father, fair knowledge of, most of the things required to maintain or improve upon my home. "Why not" I asked myself, "sell those services to those who don't have the time or knowledge to do it themselves?"

I was musing on that very question over a beer one day at my favorite watering hole, when in walked the stereotypical soccer mom, blonde ponytail sticking out the back of her baseball cap, impeccably dressed for jogging in a name brand outfit. The delicate perspiration stains at armpits and neck attested to the fact that she had, in fact, been working out.

"That looks good!" she said, eyeing the moisture running down the side of my glass. "Give me a cold one, please!" She told the barkeep.

Reaching into the pocket of her outfit, she brought her hand out empty, cursing. "Damn! I must have left my billfold at home!"

I looked her over, but she didn't seem to be faking it, so I raised a finger from my glass and when Fred looked my way, I nodded in her direction. Fred had gotten to know me pretty well over the last couple of years and didn't bat an eye. When he put the beer down in front of her, soccer mom pushed it away.

"Sorry!" she said, "I thought you heard me. I forgot my wallet."

"It's on Hank." Fred nodded in my direction, as if the bar were full of people instead of just the three of us.

For the first time, Blondie turned to look at me, instead of my beer. "Thanks!" she said, "What can I do to repay you?"

I looked her up and down, but instead of what I had in mind to say, I answered, "You got something needs fixing around the house? A deck you want built? Curtain rods you need hung? If you've got work for a handyman, and pay my bill on time, that would be payment enough."

She returned my assessing look, toe to head. "You any good?"

"I'm not a pro, yet." I told her honestly, "So I'm slow, but I'm a perfectionist. I estimate the job up front, and that's what you pay, if you like my price. If you're not satisfied with my work, I fix it, no charge."

"What if it costs more than you estimated?" she asked.

"Still costs you the same." I told her. "That's the price I pay for learning how to estimate better."

"What if it costs less than you estimated?"

"Still costs you the same." I replied. "No haggling, no fuss. If you get a better estimate, take it. If mine's the best, and I make a little money, what's it to you?"

"You know where Emerald Glen is?" She asked, writing on a napkin.

"Yeah." I answered, checking the address she had written.

"I need an estimate for my countertops." She said. "Be there at ten tomorrow."

"Hang on." I got out my PDA and made a show of checking the calendar. Tomorrow, the whole week, in fact the whole month was clear, except for the meeting in a couple of weeks with the divorce lawyer. He was just going to tell me how little I had left and that wouldn't take long, but I shook my head anyway. "Can't do it at ten. How 'bout between two and three?"

I could see the wheels turning, as she tried to remember what her day would look like tomorrow. "Okay, but not a minute past three."

She polished off the rest of her beer and left. If she had jogged this far from Emerald Glen, she was in pretty good shape.

I pulled up to the guardhouse at Emerald Glen at 2:45 the next afternoon, my brand new magnetic signs gleaming on the sides of my old pickup. "Hank the Handyman" they proclaimed, "I fix everything but broken hearts."

Emerald Glen is where CEOs and other high mucky-mucks stashed their trophy wives in multi-million dollar mansions to give them the illusion of security while their bread-winners were away winning platinum plated, diamond encrusted bread for them. You had to have permission from a resident, phoned in to the guardhouse, to come into the place, but there were so many landscapers, painters, roofers, carpenters, pool cleaners and other service industry types running around out there that there was no way they could keep track of everyone who entered those gates.

Well, if they wanted to believe that their golf club membership bought them security, it was no skin off my nose. I gave the address to the guy in the guardhouse and he checked something on his computer, then pushed the button that raised the flimsy wooden barrier that was supposed to keep me out if I was a bad guy. I checked my MapQuest printout and found the place without too much trouble, pulling into the semi-circular driveway so that my signs could be easily seen from the street.

Soccer mom was dressed in some sort of loose, lounging outfit that did more for her firm, uptilted breasts than the sports bra from the day before.

"It's almost three!" She griped. "Where have you been!"

"I said between two and three." I told her. "It's between two and three. Would you like me to leave?"

"No." she said irritably. "Since you're here, you might as well do what you came for."

Sweeping ahead of me into the spacious kitchen, she said, "I just had these countertops redone, and they were supposed to match throughout the house, but look!"

I looked at the splendid marble countertops - real marble, mind you, not the plastic stuff. They looked flawless to me, but I took a couple of shots with my digital camera, just in case.

"And?" I asked.

"And this!" she said, sweeping into the downstairs bathroom. "See how these look green compared to the ones in the kitchen?"

They DID look a bit green. I took a couple of shots there and in the other bathrooms. Then I took some measurements, inspected the underside of the marble where it was readily visible, and happened to find the name of the vendor that had sold the tops, while giving myself a quick lesson in how they were mounted.

"Have you talked to the vendor, or whoever installed them?" I asked.

"Yes," she sighed exasperatedly, "and they refuse to do anything. They keep telling me it's my imagination, that they CAN'T be different colors, so I have no choice but to get someone else to change them out."

"I'll do some research and get back to you with an estimate early next week," I told her, visions of dollar signs flashing through my head as I thought of the markup and labor charges I could soak her for.

I got her name - Courtney Collins - and number and took off for home.

At home - thank God the mortgage had been paid on the place by my parent's insurance when they died, before I married the wicked witch of the west. Neither the house or its furnishings were community property and it burned her up that she couldn't get her talons on them.

I popped the cap on a Pacifico Clara and sat down in front of the computer. I uploaded the digital shots I had taken for a side-by-side comparison. Much to my surprise, I couldn't detect any color difference in the photos! Even looking at the spectral histograms of them showed no significant shift toward or away from green. Then I realized what must have happened. All of the shots were taken with the flash.

Damn! There went my profit. Sure, I could have done the whole thing anyway, but it wasn't in me to actually cheat one of my customers. I didn't mind making a profit off of them, but I was damned if I was going to start business by running a scam on my first customer.

I called Courtney to tell her my conclusion.

"Collins residence, Courtney speaking!"

I didn't know anyone still answered the phone that way.

"Ms. Collins, this is Hank, the Handyman." I told her. "I've got your estimate ready."

"So soon?" she asked.

"Yes." I replied. "The problem is not with the marble. It's your lighting. All you need to do is change the lights you've got in the bathrooms and the marble will look the same as the kitchen."

I thought I was prepared for the next question, but what she said was not what I was expecting.

"Good." she told me. "You passed my little test. You're both smart enough to have figured it out, and honest enough not to try to cheat me. If you'll come back tomorrow, I'll show you what I really want you to do."

"Not so fast." I told her. "You owe me fifty bucks for the time I wasted on a bogus estimate."

"Add it to your estimate for the new cabinets I want you to build." She replied.

"No ma'am. That would inflate the estimate." I said. "I'll bring an invoice for the original estimate with me and do a new estimate for the cabinets. Ten A.M. tomorrow."

"Good! That will give me time to get the kids off to school and be ready for you." I wasn't sure what she had to do to get ready for me, but who was I to question the customer?

This time, I rang the doorbell at 10:00AM sharp.

"So you can be punctual when you want to!" she said, opening the door only far enough to let me in.

In the dim light of the entryway, it took a few moments for my eyes to adjust as I answered, "I was punctual last time. I just didn't give a specific arrival time."

About then I realized that, as I had suspected, Ms. Courtney Collins five foot two or three frame could have graced the centerfold of any men's magazine. I realized this because I could see pretty much the whole package through the diaphanous nighty she wore.

"Would you like a little time to change before we get started?" I asked. She didn't seem shy about letting me see her, so I wasn't shy about looking.

"I already have, Hank." she said in a throaty voice that had my cock trying to burst the seams on my jeans. I could swear the tools were clanking together in my tool belt in time with its pulsing.

"Yeah." I said, not sure yet if I should take her up on the obvious offer. This could be a good thing or a bad thing, and I wanted time to scope out the situation before I took the bait. "You want to show me where you want these new cabinets?"

She raised an eyebrow, but turned on one elegantly elevated heel and said, "Please come this way."

"Oh," I said, pulling a printed sheet from my clipboard, "before I forget, here's your invoice for the previous job."

She took it without looking at me, and read as we walked down an endless hallway.

"'Countertop Consultation.'" she read in an amused voice, "Honest AND tactful. I'm beginning to think there are unplumbed depths to you, Hank the Handyman."

"Yes ma'am." Was all I said. What came to mind when she said 'unplumbed depths' was definitely NOT something I was going to say to a customer on second meeting.

We entered a cavernous bedroom, furnished lavishly in dark woods and fine fabrics. The massive four-poster bed, however, seemed a bit out of sync with the rest of the decor.

"In here." she said, sliding open a mirrored door to reveal a closet the size of my living room. Leading me around a bend in the 'L' shaped room, she kicked a couple of cardboard boxes, saying; "I need cabinets against that wall to organize and store the stuff in these boxes."

"It would be helpful if I knew what was in the boxes," I said. "I would be able to build storage tailored to your needs, that way, instead of general storage for something or other."

"Of course," she shrugged, picking up one of the boxes and resting it on top of the other. "This box contains whips, flails, floggers, and bondage gear."

She paused to guage my reaction as she lifted the lid to show me the contents. I certainly reacted, but I managed to confine it to my jeans. I've always had a pretty good poker face, and it was all I could do not to let my imagination-driven emotions show.

"And the other box?" I asked casually.

She dropped the first back on the floor and lifted the second to rest on top of it. This one seemed heavier, though the two boxes were the same size.

"The other box contains my dildo collection," she told me, flipping off the lid. "I have them in all shapes and sizes."

This time I couldn't resist commenting, "You certainly do..."

The box was filled to the brim with phallic objects of various sizes, shapes and colors, some double-ended, some with two shafts, many large enough to make a mare scream.

I stared for only a moment before whipping out my tape measure and notebook to start cataloging them by size and general construction. I was tempted to use the camera to save time, but somehow didn't think that would go over too well.

Courtney stood there watching me work. I could tell by her body language that she was waiting for some sort of reaction or comment, but I continued with my inventory. When I had finished, I went through the other box and did a more general inventory, not bothering to measure everything, since most of that stuff could be better organized by being hung from something.

When I had everything I thought I needed, and my erection had lost some of its steam, I took some measurements of the area of the closet that Courtney indicated would be best for the new cabinet.

"Do you want this built in," I asked, "or do you anticipate the possibility of wanting it moved at some point."

"Why does that matter?" she asked.

"It may not," I replied, "but if, for instance, you would like to be able to take it to your, um, play area, I could put it on casters. Then you would have everything close at hand when you need it."

"I see," she smiled, and the look that came with that smile resurrected my flagging erection in a hurry. "Yes, by all means, let's put it on casters."

"And do you want to be able to see the contents without opening doors," I continued, "or would you rather they stay hidden until the cabinet is opened? Or, if you like, I can make a place for labels for each compartment."

"N-n-o-o..." she looked thoughtful for a minute. "No, let's keep the contents our little secret until it's opened. No sense frightening my, uh, playmates, until the time is right, and there's always the possibility that one of my less, er, knowledgeable guests will get lost and stumble upon it at an inappropriate time."

"I see," I said, scribbling in my notebook. "Locks, then. Keyed, or combination?"

"Keyed, I think," Courtney answered. "No, combination. I can never keep track of my keys."

"And shall I leave room for, um, growth?" I asked, trying my damnedest to keep a straight face.

"Why, I hadn't thought of that, but by all means," she replied, "do leave room for expansion. Shall we say about, oh, fifty percent?"

"Of course," I wrote again, then said, "I've noticed that the wood in here is different than that in the bedroom. Which shall I match, or shall I try to blend them?"

Courtney gave me a penetrating stare, trying to determine if I was making fun of her. I stared at my notepad, ready for her reply.

"The style is the same in both rooms," she finally answered, "so if you can incorporate both woods, it would go well wherever I decided to leave it, wouldn't it?"

"I'm not an interior decorator, ma'am," I said, "but I believe it would."

When I thought I had all the information I needed I told her I would work up an estimate and get back to her by the end of the week. She walked me to the door, both well-manicured hands wrapped around my bicep, and her lush, barely clad hips brushing mine too often to be accidental.

Finding a source for the rich hardwoods was a bit of a problem, but fortunately the style was fairly simple, and other than a couple of new router bits and a homemade jig or two, I had pretty much everything I needed to make the cabinets.

I drew the plans up and turned them into PDF files along with the estimate, which I also saved from Quickbooks as PDF. These I attached to an email and sent off to Courtney two days later. I knew I had lowballed the estimate when she came back with a 'when can you start' within fifteen minutes. Ah well. I didn't expect to make too much on the first couple of jobs. I'd get better at estimating with experience.

I built the cabinet in my workshop, and considered using the pneumatic nailer to save time. Instead, I opted for quality, and designed the pieces so they could be joined or screwed together. The drawers were all dovetailed, and I used the biscuit joiner for most of the frame pieces, attaching the skin with screws and wood glue. I did some simple inlays on the larger panels to incorporate the lighter wood from the closet with the darker wood from the bedroom, and took my time about finishing it - sanding everything painstakingly between coats to end up with a mirror smooth finish. I did use the pneumatic finish nailer for the decorative moldings, to reinforce the wood glue so I wouldn't have to clamp them, primarily because there was less chance of marring the wood than with a hammer or clamps.

The finished piece was a work of art - a kind of adaptation of an armoire. The base was filled with a double column of drawers for the dildos, each of which had grooves of graduated sizes to hold everything from four inch vibrators to fourteen inch horsecocks - with balls. The top portion was filled with hooks and bars from which the whips and bondage gear could be hung, and opened with a pair of double doors which were also lined with hooks. Above that was a couple of general purpose shelves for things that might not fit elsewhere.