The Estimator's Visit

The agency had said seven o'clock. I got there at seven because I'm an accountant and being early is a disease you can't cure.

The house was mine, or mostly mine, since the divorce paperwork finally cleared in March. I was forty-two years old, single by choice, and about to do something I'd been thinking about for eight years. And no, I'm not going to explain the eight years right now. Later.

The basement was supposed to be a conversion. Half-finished, exposed studs, stacks of lumber against one wall. A single work light hung from a cord in the middle of everything, throwing a yellow circle onto the contractor's tarp below. It smelled like cut pine and drywall dust. Good cover, honestly. Nobody looks twice at a house under renovation.

I had a folder under my arm. Fake blueprints, printed at the FedEx off Cedar Street. I'd even folded them wrong so they'd look used.

The plywood floor creaked under my boots.

"Hello?" I called it down the stairs, mostly for the neighbors' benefit. "I'm looking for the estimator."

Nothing.

Then the shadows next to the furnace moved, and I mean they moved, the way a boulder moves when it decides it's tired of being a boulder.

He unfolded. That's the only word. He was huge, gray-green, with skin like aged limestone, cracked in places with what looked like deliberate carving. Wings folded flat against his back. Horns. A jaw you could hang a coat on. His eyes caught the work light and held it, amber and patient.

"Madam," he said. His voice was gravel sliding downhill, but slow. Courteous. "Rafael. I'm the estimator. Specialty structural modifications."

"Right," I said. "Yes. I called about, um. Load-bearing work."

Good, Brianna. Very smooth.

He nodded gravely, as though this were a perfectly normal Tuesday, which I suppose for him it was. He was, per the agency's file, older than the printing press. I'd read the file twice. Consent forms, health screening, references. Very thorough outfit. More thorough than my last CPA firm, frankly.

"Shall we discuss terms?" he said.

"Please!"

He gestured to a sawhorse near the lumber pile. I sat on it. He stood, which meant I was roughly at the height of his sternum. Fine. That was fine.

"This is an introduction, not a transaction," he said. "The agency arranged it, and nothing is owed by either of us, before, during or after. No money, no favors, no strings. Whatever happens tonight happens only because we both want it. You understand?"

"I understand. Nothing owed on either side. It's completely separate from the rest of my life."

"Correct." He produced, of all things, a small leather folio. "One night only. No further contact unless you initiate through the agency. I do not seek you out. Discretion is mutual and absolute."

"Yes!"

"You may stop anything at any time. I stop immediately and completely. A word for full stop, chosen by you, that means everything ends, no negotiation, no hurt feelings."

"Granite," I said. I'd picked it two weeks ago. He was a gargoyle. It felt thematic.

"Granite," he repeated, and something in his craggy face suggested approval. "And a softer word, if you wish to slow but not stop?"

"Sandpaper."

His mouth did something that might have been a smile on a face with fewer corners. "You are prepared."

"I'm an accountant. I read contracts for fun."

"Then we understand one another." He closed the folio. "Now. You requested the scenario. I am the estimator. You have called me for an inspection. Tell me, madam, what is it you need done?"

My heart picked up, which was expected, and my palms went damp, which was annoying. But I'd rehearsed this in the shower for two weeks and by God I was going to deliver the line.

"I need," I said, "you to show me the space."

Silence. The furnace ticked.

"Show me," he said slowly, "the space."

"The whole space. Everything that needs the work. I want your professional assessment. In detail. Hands-on."

He set the folio down on the lumber pile with great care, the way a man sets down something valuable.

"Then we begin the inspection," he said. "Stand, please!"

I stood.

"Boots stay or go?"

"Stay," I said. "The boots stay."

"Then remove everything else. Slowly, if you would. I cannot estimate properly at speed."

So I did what he asked, in the manner of a professional. Folder first, set on the sawhorse. Then I unbuttoned my blouse the way I'd unbuttoned a hundred blouses, one button at a time, meeting his eyes the whole way, which was new. His gaze didn't waver and didn't push. He simply watched, like an inspector watching a wall for cracks.

The blouse went over the work light's circle and I let it fall on the tarp. Bra next, dark gray, nothing special, unhooked in front because I'm not a masochist. I shrugged it off and stood there topless in a basement I own, in front of a seven-foot gargoyle, and I felt, unexpectedly, fantastic.

"Continue," he said, low.

Slacks. I stepped out of them with as much dignity as a woman can manage while stepping out of slacks, which is less than you'd hope. Underwear last. I hooked my thumbs in and drew them down my legs, slow, bending at the knee like a seminar told me to once, and stepped free.

And then I just stood there. Forty-two years old, wearing steel-toed boots and nothing else, in a pool of yellow light.

He circled me. Actually circled, footsteps deliberate on the plywood, and I felt the heat coming off him, faintly, like a wall that had been sitting in the sun.

"Hmm," he said, behind me.

"Problem?"

"Considerable work required," he said. "Deep foundational attention. Extended... load testing."

"Oh no," I said dryly. "How long will that take?"

"All night, madam. Possibly longer. I may need to return."

"With a written estimate."

"Naturally."

I turned around to face him. He was watching me with those amber eyes and there was nothing cold in them at all.

"Before we proceed further," he said, and his voice dropped even lower, "I require your explicit agreement to touch you. Say yes, or we stop here and you owe me nothing at all."

"Yes," I said. "God, yes. You may touch me, Rafael. That's a yes. Formal. Witness me."

"Done," he said. "And your granite stands."

"My granite stands."

He raised one enormous hand, stone-gray fingers, careful as a surgeon, and rested it on my shoulder. His palm was warm. Rough. It covered half my collarbone.

"First assessment," he rumbled. "You are in excellent condition for the work ahead."

"Flatterer."

"I never flatter on an estimate," he said. "It is unprofessional."

And his other hand came up slow, giving me every chance to say stop, and I didn't say stop, I said "keep going," and that's when the inspection really began.

His hands moved down my arms, one at a time, unhurried. The texture is what got me. I'd expected stone-cold and I got stone-warm, and rough in a way that was clearly deliberate, every pad of his fingers a fine grit sandpaper dragged slow across skin. Not enough to hurt. Just enough to announce itself.

"Feel free to note anything that requires reinforcement," he said, behind my ear.

"Noted," I managed. "Extensively noted."

He ran a palm across my belly and I shivered, full-body, and he paused.

"Cold?" he asked.

"Not even slightly. That was approval. Keep going."

"Approval," he repeated, like he was filing it. "I will log that."

And he did keep going. Across my ribs, up my sides, careful around the soft parts, thorough as a man checking mortar joints. By the time his hands settled on my hips I was breathing like I'd climbed the stairs.

"Madam," he rumbled. "I have found structural deficiencies that can only be addressed from behind. Would you care to brace against this sawhorse?"

"Oh, that's terrible," I said. "Yes. Absolutely yes."

He spread the tarp flat where my blouse had landed, folded it twice, patted it once like he was testing a slab. Then he turned me around with two hands on my waist, gentle as anything, and bent me forward until my palms hit the sawhorse. Solid pine. Good height. I'd bought those sawhorses myself and I'd never appreciated them properly.

"Comfortable?" he asked.

"Yes. Yes, keep going."

"Condom?" I heard the foil, actually. He'd asked earlier, in the contract stage, and I'd said yes, new partner, condom, obviously.

"Present and applied," he said.

Then his hands were on my hips again, steadying, and he entered me slow. Slow is underselling it. Slow like continental drift, inch by inch, while I gripped the sawhorse and made a noise I was glad the basement was empty for. He was big. Of