Meddlesome Mushrooms, Chapter 3 (Patreon)

CHAPTER THREE

Deep within Georgiana’s mansion, her maid Maya was just beginning to pour a few drops of rose essential oil under her bathwater (as a rare treat to herself) when she heard, from far away in the house, the front door slamming shut. Maya, who was in her mid-30s, had been serving Georgiana’s family for the better part of 20 years. She knew that both of Georgiana’s parents were away on business. She also knew that no one else but her mistress had a key to the house.

Even still, the petite, dark-skinned maid stood up apprehensively, momentarily pausing in her task to strain her ears towards the sound. It wasn’t like Georgiana to come home early from a party, especially the parties that were held at the Lodge. If this year had been anything like last year, Georgiana would have pulled up around 3 am in a stylish cab, with a collection of four or five doting young men (and maybe even women too), and proceeded to continue the party in the pool, drinking away until the sun came up.

But it was barely even 11 pm; Maya turned off the bathwater and listened intently for any telltale sign that there wasn’t an intruder in the house. Sure enough, within a couple seconds, she heard the powerful clap and clatter of Georgiana’s platform heels on the hard, smooth marble of the main floor foyer. So she had come home early. Maya turned the bath water on again, sighing to herself.

She had been looking forward to soaking in the sweet-scented water, but now that Georgiana was home, Maya needed to attune her desires to the needs of her mistress. And from the sound of her rapidly approaching, heavy footsteps, Georgiana was extremely unhappy about something. Less than a minute later, Georgiana burst into her bedchambers, cursing to herself. Maya looked up from her crouched position by the bath, which had begun to emit a rich, thick, rose-scented steam.

“Oh! Georgiana! Back so soon?” said Maya, keeping her voice steady. She knew that it was best to directly engage Georgiana concerning whatever was bothering her. If left to stew, Georgiana could poison herself with her own toxic emotions.

“That smug little bitch,” Georgiana was muttering to herself through gritted teeth. “I’ll show her...I’ll...I’ll get to the bottom of this. She’s not gonna get away with this.”

“Who’s not going to get away with what?” asked Maya, standing up as she continued to let the hot bath run. She was now directly in front of Georgiana, who, in her unconscious anger, had stormed straight up towards the bath, without even meaning to. Maya stood her ground, even as the gigantic figure of her mistress fast approached. Georgiana was 6’8 in her platform heels, nearly an entire two feet taller than the 4’9 Maya, whose head did not even come up to the bottom of Georgiana’s breasts. Looking straight forward, Maya was staring directly into the middle of her mistress’s stomach, which was taut and defined as Georgiana flexed and unflexed her abdominal muscles as she breathed angrily in and out.

“Woah, woah, don’t run me over!” said Maya suddenly, putting her little hands up as Georgiana kept coming on. The statuesque beauty had been so preoccupied that she had nearly flattened her own maid. Shaken briefly from her plots, Georgiana stared down blankly at the steaming, running bath.

“What’s this?” she asked.

“Well...it’s your bath!” said Maya brightly, gesturing with a smile towards the burgeoning suds. “Or, at least, it was my bath a few minutes ago, but...well, now you’re back home, so it’s your bath.”

“Huh?” muttered Georgiana, shaking her head a little as she stomped over to another corner of her bedchambers, shaking her head a little as she waved her hand in front of her face, like she was dismissing Maya’s offer.

“No, no,” said Georgian flippantly, almost to herself, “I don’t want a bath. You take it, Maya. Treat yourself. You don’t treat yourself often enough. I’ve got a bone to pick anyway.”

“Hmmmm….no,” said Maya definitively, pursuing her mistress around the bedroom (and having to move her little legs quickly, to keep up with Georgiana’s long, powerful strides). “I think you do need a bath, actually. It would be just right for you right now...calm you down, soothe your nerves.”

“I don’t need to calm down, Maya,” huffed Georgiana roughly, stepping around her tiny maid and continuing past her to another corner of the bedroom. “What I need to do is find a way to...to —”

“To what, Georgiana?” persisted Maya, who had practically run behind her mistress, and had managed to corner her on the far end of her bedchambers. Georgiana grunted and tried to step past her, but Maya spread her arms as wide as she could and caught up Georigana by her thick, wide hips, which were so big compared to the little maid that her arms could barely fit all the way around them.

“Maya!” whined Georgiana in irritation, taking another step with the maid clinging to her lower body. “What are you doing? Come on! Let me go!”

“No!” chirped Maya defiantly, her face buried in her mistress’s stomach. “Not until you promise that you’re going to get into the bath, take a deep breath, relax, and tell me what’s going on.”

Georgiana sighed up at the ceiling as she stood there for a few more moments. Maya felt the imposing woman’s hips drop a little, and she knew that her insistence had worked.

“Okay...fine,” Georgiana sighed again.

“There,” said Maya soothingly, unlatching herself from Georgiana’s hips, “was that so hard?”

“Well...you know me, Maya,” murmured Georgiana, who had crossed over towards her large, stately four-poster bed, sank down onto it, and started undoing her heels. “When I’m in a mood...well, I’m in a mood, you know.”

“Yes, I do know,” said Maya heartily, unscrewing the cap of chamomile essential oil and adding a few drops into the steaming bath. “I think I probably know you better than anyone on this planet, Georgiana.”

“Hmmm, isn’t that depressing?” Georgiana muttered, but then quickly snapped her head up at Maya. “I mean…” she added quickly, “Nothing against you, Maya, of course. I don’t take you for granted at all. I’m just talking about, well...you know.”

“Your parents have been on their own schedules ever since I joined this family,” said Maya kindly, turning off the bath water. “They mean no harm by it, I don’t think.”

“Yeah, well, their ‘schedules’ never really seemed too concerned with me, now, did they?” mumbled Georgiana, peeling off her tight dress. Maya had been about to answer, but Georgiana kept going. “Oh geez, whatever! I don’t even care anymore. That’s not why I’m all...pissed off right now.”

“Well, I ran it nice and hot for you,” said Maya, gesturing towards the pleasant smelling suds.

“Thanks, Maya,” said Georgiana genuinely, now completely naked, as she walked over toward the large porcelain bathtub. Even after all these years, Maya could still marvel at Georgiana’s perfect figure as she stepped into the bath. She looked like someone out of a Renaissance painting, like one of those ancient statues of Aphrodite.

Georgiana winced slightly as her skin became accustomed to the hot water, but within a couple seconds, she was sighing out in pleasure as she leaned back into the tub, sinking into the water all the way up to the middle of her breasts, closing her eyes. Even as she reclined like this in the tub, she was almost as tall as Maya, who stood close by, leaning expectantly into one of the tub’s rounded ends.

“Okay,” said the maid, after she had given Georgiana a little time to relax into the bath, “so tell me what’s got you so upset?”

“It’s that stuck-up...primrose, Cora Patel,” answered Georgiana, her eyes still closed. She had been about to call Cora a stuck-up “bitch” instead, but she had held herself back, because she didn’t want to betray too much of her animosity to Maya. Besides, she knew that her maid didn’t much approve of such language.

“So what’s Ms. Patel gone and done this time?” asked Maya. “Did she wear some fancy dress tonight, trying to show you up?”

“That’s...not what she did,” muttered Georgiana. “It’s worse than that, Maya. She’s got some kind of...secret or something. She’s growing herself.”

“She’s...she’s what?” asked Maya, her brow furrowing of its own accord as she perked her ears up even more than they had been before. “What did you say?”

“I said,” repeated Georgiana, opening up her eyes and sitting forward in the bath, “that she’s growing herself somehow. She’s like seven feet tall, Maya.”

The maid just stood there beside the bath for a few long moments, staring directly into Georgiana’s eyes, trying to come to terms with what she was hearing. Of course, her mistress’ words were extraordinary, but to Maya, they had a particularly poignant significance. Unbeknownst to anyone (including Georgiana), Maya had harbored a secret desire to grow bigger, ever since she had stopped growing as a teenager.

And hers was not the normal desire of short people to grow taller, and hence attain normalcy. No, Maya wanted to actually grow for its own sake: to expand her body, to become taller, to tower over people. It was something like a strange fetish for her, and it had never been lost on Maya that it was an odd one to have, for someone as short and small as she was. But, as she never stopped reminding herself, no one really chose their fetishes.

“But...but Ms. Patel has always been...well, quite a normal woman, hasn’t she?” asked Maya, doing her best to keep her voice sounding disinterested and steady. “At least as far as height was concerned.”

“Well, there’s nothing normal about her anymore,” huffed Georgiana, reclining back in the tub. “She was several inches taller than me, and I was 6’8 in my heels tonight.”

“Well...maybe...maybe she was pulling some kind of trick?” suggested Maya. “Maybe she was wearing — ”

“Look, she wasn’t wearing anything special, ok?” interrupted Georgiana irritatedly. “No heels, no special tricks, no nothing. She’s just...somehow managed to grow herself recently. And it’s not just in height, Maya.”

“Oh?” asked the maid, doing an impeccable job of hiding her excitement.

“No! Like, she’s gotten more...well, stronger, for one thing,” said Georgiana, struggling for the words. “She’s all muscular and everything now. Almost like a bodybuilder...but still...I don’t know...feminine?”

“Hmmm, well that sounds like quite something,” hummed Maya. “I wish I had gone, just so I could’ve seen her.”

“And that’s what everyone else was doing!” burst out Georgiana, sitting up again in the tub abruptly. Maya quietly shushed her, guiding her mistress’s glorious body back down into a reclining position.

“Shhh, shhh, just calm down, Georgiana,” she murmured. “Take it easy...relax.”

Georgiana did as she was told and closed her eyes again, letting out a frustrated sigh.

“I’m...I’m sorry, Maya,” she muttered. “I don’t mean to get all worked up. It’s just that...well, I spent all this time getting ready tonight, getting my dress, buying my special heels, getting my hair done, making sure my makeup was perfect...And then all everyone else does is stare at Cora freaking Patel all night.”

“That couldn’t have been easy for you,” Maya said soothingly.

“Look, I know I’m an attention whore,” continued Georgiana. “I admit it freely. So I really can’t pretend to not care when some...someone else makes a point to just...to just stick it to me on purpose, you know?”

“Was that what she was doing, do you think?” asked Maya.

“Oh, I know that’s what she was doing,” said Georgiana decisively. “The way she went up to me and just...smiled down her nose at me with that...that little grin of hers. Making it a point to stand close to me so that she could show me how much bigger she was in her flats...teasing me and...and trying to embarrass me in front of everyone. You should’ve seen her, Maya. God, I can tell she’s totally obsessed with me. It’s, like...so obvious. The way she was glancing over at me all night long, making sure that I was watching her.”

“Well, you were watching her all night, weren’t you?” Maya ventured, with some slight humor in her voice.

“I...well yeah, everyone was, though,” replied Georgiana.

“Hmmm, well, I have to say, this isn’t the first time you’ve come home with little stories or anecdotes about Ms. Patel,” said Maya mildly.

“What are you trying to say, Maya?” asked Gerogiana, a little sharply.

“Oh nothing!” said the maid, shrugging with a slight smile. “It’s just...Are you...are you sure that Ms. Patel’s ‘obsession’ isn’t...well, mutual?”

“Me?!” cried Georgiana, forcing a laugh to escape her gorgeous diaphragm. “Obsessed with Cora Patel?! Please.”

“Just asking, is all,” said Maya, shrugging again as she shook her head a bit in humor. “I don’t really know too much about what’s happening down in the town, but boy, do I always know what’s going on with that Cora Patel.”

“Okay, okay, you’ve made your point Maya,” said Georgiana irritatedly, holding up a suddy, dripping hand. “The point is that Cora has a secret, and I need to find out what it is. She’s...she’s taking something...or using something...to grow herself. And I need to find out what it is.”

Maya stood there for several silent moments, her little body vibrating with thrilled energy. Could this be it? Could Cora Patel have discovered a way for Maya to finally make her fantasies come true?

“It’s too bad that you weren’t there at the Lodge tonight,” mumbled Georgiana. “I could’ve had you follow her home. I was gonna do that, but, well...it’s kinda hard for me to covertly follow someone, especially when I’m dressed up like this.” She turned her eyes to Maya. “But my sub-five-foot maid? You would’ve been perfect.”

“I...I could maybe...spy on her?” offered Maya, hoping that her suggestion would not seem too out-of-character. “I mean,” she added, to disguise herself, “If that’s even an ethical thing to do, which it’s probably not, now that I think about it.”

“No, that wouldn’t work,” said Georgiana dismissively, ignoring Maya’s concocted dilemma over ethics. “You’re tiny, but Cora’s a savvy little...a savvy woman. She’d find you out, eventually, no matter how careful you were.”

The two of them remained silent for a few more moments, with Maya standing there, trying to find out how to discover this secret without betraying herself, and Georgiana reclining in the tub.  Suddenly, Georgiana sat up, her eyes wide open.

“Drones!” she exclaimed.

“Pardon?” asked Maya.

“My dad ordered a bunch of those fancy-shmancy, top-of-the-line drones a few months ago, right? Just, like, on a whim?”

“I...believe he did, yes,” replied Maya. “For surveillance around the estate if I’m not mistaken.”

“Well,” said Georgiana, now becoming excited herself, “what if you used that knowledge...to spy on Cora? And see what she was up to?”

“You want me...to do that?” asked Maya, feeling incredibly ebullient, though hiding it well.

“Well, you said yourself that you know how to use those things,” said Georgiana, “and I don’t wanna waste time learning this myself. How about it, Maya?”

The little maid stood there for a few moments, and she allowed a slow and impeccably genuine smile to crawl across her face as she spoke to her mistress.

“Let’s get to the bottom of this mystery.”