Relator V
FFFM
My phone buzzes.
My Boss.
I'm a commission-based whore at the agency's beck and call.
"Beth."
My boss's voice cuts through the line with the precision of an auctioneer's closing gavel.
"I have an assignment. Double bonus if you manage it. Triple if you close it within the month."
They don't wait for my reply.
"Perth family. Recently blended. The husband—Graham—made his money in mining logistics. Married a woman named Patricia six months ago. She has a daughter, eighteen. He has a son, same age."
I hear office papers shuffling.
"The children are... difficult. The parents are worse. They can't agree on anything except that they want Point Piper. Prestige. Harbor views. The address."
"And the catch?"
"They've rejected four properties. Two architects. One interior designer."
Another pause, heavier this time.
"They fight. Constantly. The stepson and stepdaughter apparently despise each other. Patricia and Graham disagree on every detail—modern versus traditional, pool versus garden, minimalist versus maximalist. The agents before you couldn't manage them."
I look out at the harbour, watching the first ferry cut its golden line across the water.
"I'll take it," I say.
What else can a wage slave say?
The first showing is a disaster before we reach the foyer.
"This is hideous." The stepdaughter—Chloe—stands in the entrance of the first mansion, her arms crossed tight against her chest. She's beautiful in that sharp, expensive way that eighteen-year-olds can be when they've never worried about money: dark hair cut in a severe bob, clothing that costs more than my monthly rent, a mouth that twists naturally into disdain.
"It looks like a hotel lobby. I want to live in a home, not check into one."
"You're being dramatic." Her stepbrother—Ethan—leans against the marble wall, his posture deliberately lazy.
He's tall, athletic, with the kind of face that photographs well and knows it.
"It's clean. Modern. Unlike that Victorian nightmare you made us look at last week."
"That Victorian nightmare had character. This has... what? Recessed lighting and invisible door handles?"
"Children." Patricia's voice carries the weight of expensive perfume and exhaustion. She's younger than I expected—early forties, perhaps, with the maintained elegance of someone who has never skipped a facial. Her blonde hair is swept into a chignon that doesn't move when she turns her head. "Let's not start again."
"We're not children, Mother." Chloe's voice sharpens further. "And I'm not sharing a roof with him if it looks like a pharmaceutical executive's wet dream."
Graham clears his throat, a sound like gravel in a cement mixer. He's thick-necked, sun-damaged, clearly uncomfortable in his pressed linen shirt. "The boy has a point about the lighting. Good for reading. Practical."
"Practical." Patricia's laugh is a single note. "Yes, Graham. Let's base our multi-million-dollar purchase on reading lamps."
I stand slightly apart, watching them tear at each other, and I think of my mother's voice in my head: Find the crack, Beth. Every family has one. Widen it until they fall through, or seal it until they can't breathe without you.
But there are too many cracks here.
The stepsiblings glare at each other with something that goes beyond annoyance—there's heat in it, the kind that could burn or warm depending on how it's directed. The parents orbit each other like planets in failing revolutions, close enough to collide, distant enough to freeze.
I show them the kitchen, the infinity pool, the master suite with its harbour views. They find fault with everything. Chloe wants the walls knocked down; Ethan wants them built higher. Patricia imagines dinner parties; Graham calculates resale value.
By the time we reach the fourth property—a sprawling estate with sandstone foundations and glass extensions—they're barely speaking to each other, and I'm calculating how long I can survive on my savings. And screw my next car repayment.
"This is worse than the first one." Chloe kicks at the polished floorboards. "Who designed this? Someone with a personality disorder?"
"At least it has a personality." Ethan moves closer to her, close enough that I notice how she doesn't step away. "Unlike some people."
"Are you calling me boring, Ethan?"
"I'm calling you predictable. All that black clothing, all that sarcasm. Very suburban goth. Very original."
Her hand twitches toward him, and for a moment I think she'll strike him. Instead, her fingers catch on his shirt cuff, accidental or deliberate, and they both store the moment.
The contact lasts less than a second, but I see it—the flush that climbs Chloe's throat, the way Ethan's jaw tightens, the charge that passes between them like static before a storm.
Patricia sees it too. Her eyes narrow, calculating, and when she looks at me, there's something there I can't read.
"Ms Jones," she says, her voice suddenly warm as melted sugar. "I think we need a different approach. These children—" she says the word deliberately, watching them flinch—"clearly have energy that needs... redirecting. Graham and I are going to discuss the third property. The one with the garden."
She touches her husband's arm, and he looks surprised but compliant. "Perhaps you could show the children the pool house? Give them space to... negotiate."
She's giving me permission. The realisation settles in my stomach like warm liquor.
She's seen what I saw, and she wants me to use it.
I lead Ethan and Chloe toward the separate structure, listening to their footsteps behind me—his heavier, hers quick and irritated. The pool house is all glass and cedar, a single open space with a daybed and a kitchenette and too much privacy.
"This is inappropriate," Chloe says, but she doesn't move toward the door.
"Everything about our situation is inappropriate." Ethan moves past her, close enough that his arm brushes her shoulder.
"We're not related. Technically, we've known each other six months. Our parents are trying to buy a house we'll all have to live in together." He turns to face her, and the space between them hums.
"What's one more inappropriate thing?"
"You're disgusting."
"You've been looking at me like that since the wedding."
"Like what?"
"Like you want to know if I'm as terrible as you hope."
I should leave. This is the moment for discretion, for professional distance, for remembering that I'm a real estate agent and not a—what?
A facilitator?
A panderer?
But Patricia's voice echoes: redirecting.
And my boss's promise: double bonus.
I step closer. "The market is competitive. Families compete for properties. Sometimes..."
I let my voice soften, become intimate, "sometimes the best strategy is to find common ground. Shared investment."
They both look at me. Chloe's mouth is slightly open, her breath coming faster. Ethan's hand has found his pocket, but his eyes are on his stepsister, not on me.
"What are you suggesting?" Chloe asks.
"I'm suggesting that tension is a resource. Like any resource, it can be... utilised." I move to the daybed, sitting on its edge, letting my skirt ride slightly higher than professional.
"Your parents want this house. You both want something from each other. I want the sale." I look between them, holding their gazes. "I'm excellent at arranging mutually beneficial outcomes."
Ethan laughs, a startled sound. "You're propositioning us?"
"I'm offering a pressure valve. A way to... test compatibility. Before you commit to shared bathrooms and breakfast tables."
Chloe's hands have found each other, twisting. "This is insane."
"Is it?"
I stand, moving toward her, close enough to smell her shampoo—something herbal and bloody expensive.
"You've been fighting because you don't know how to touch each other. Because every argument is foreplay you don't understand."
I reach past her, my arm brushing her waist, and shut the pool house door. "I'm offering translation services."
She doesn't pull away. That's the first victory.
Ethan moves behind her, and I watch him watch me, understanding passing between us like a current. He's done this before, I realise.
Or he's wanted to.
The confidence in his posture is learned, practised, but his breathing betrays him—too fast, too shallow.
"Show me," he says. Not to me. To her.
I take Chloe's hand—small, warm, trembling—and place it on his chest. "Feel his heart. That's not anger."
"Fuck you," she whispers, but her fingers spread, pressing into the muscle beneath his shirt.
"That's the idea," I murmur, and guide her other hand to his waist.
What follows is choreography. I move them like pieces on a board I can't see fully, only feel. My hands on their shoulders, their hips, arranging them face to face. My voice low, instructing, translating the violence of their arguments into something they can use.
"No mucking around, pash, you two, as only youth can pash."
It's their green light. Straight to French. Spit swapping, face snogging.
Their mouths crash together with the force of months of denied collision—I step back, watching, and feel something dangerous settle in my chest.
Two faces locked. Hands holding cheeks. Fast and wild.
This is what I'm good at. This arranging, this facilitating, this finding the pressure points and pressing until something breaks or opens.
They're rough with each other, inexperienced and desperate.
Chloe's nails rake Ethan's back through his shirt. His hands grip her hips hard enough to leave evidence.
They stumble toward the daybed, and I follow, maintaining contact—my hand on her shoulder, his knee, keeping them anchored to the moment, to the transaction.
"Slow," I say when Ethan tears at her blouse. "She's not fighting you. You don't need to conquer her."
After one button pops and rolls along the tiles, he listens.
The adjustment is subtle—his grip softens, his mouth finds her neck instead of crushing her lips. Chloe's head falls back, exposing her throat, and her eyes find mine, wide and confused and wanting.
"Good," I tell her. "That's good."
I'm kneeling beside them now, the daybed's edge digging into my shins. My skirt has ridden high, my blouse loosened without my noticing.
When Ethan's hand finds my thigh—testing, questioning—I don't move it away. Instead, I guide it higher, showing him where to touch, how much pressure, watching Chloe's face as she watches him touch me.
"She likes watching," I tell him. "Don't you, Chloe?"
"Shut up," she breathes, but her hips rock against his, seeking friction.
I lean closer, my mouth near her ear. "You wanted to know if he's terrible. This is how you find out. Together."
Ethan is between us; he's fingering my pussy; he's fingering his step-sisters gash.
Her slick squishes in a puck, puck way.
My slick joins in a fucky, fucky way.
Ethan is on his knees. His tongue moving between two mounds.
Mine and Chloe's.
He laps, he laps.
She coos. I moan.
In turn we cradle his head, urging him to taste our flesh and release our juices.
Patricia finds us minutes later.
I hear the door handle turn and feel a surge at the interruption.
I see her face —composed, curious, unsurprised—and I understand that she expected this.
The scene she discovers: her daughter straddling her stepson, both of them half-dressed, flushed, dishevelled.
Me beside them, my hand still on Ethan's shoulder, my own clothing askew.
The air smells of sweat and young desire.
Patricia closes the door behind her.
"Well," she says, and her voice carries something I can't name—not anger, not shock. Assessment. "This is more efficient than I expected."
"Mother—" Chloe starts, but Patricia raises one manicured hand.
Chloe has that epic straddle, the up, down motion, the filled centre, that nothing, not even being caught out, can stop.
The need to hump. To rise and fall on cock. Grind bodies together.
Humping. Pumping. Humping. Pumping.
"Don't stop ever, on my account. I've been married three times, Chloe. I know what repressed attraction looks like."
She moves closer, examining us like a painting she's considering purchasing.
"Ms Jones, I underestimated you. I thought you'd need... encouragement."
"I respond well to incentives."
Patricia laughs, genuine and warm. "Yes. I can see that."
She sits on the arm of the daybed, crossing her legs, her posture immaculate despite the circumstances.
Meantime, the young steppies, rut.
Basic instinctive rutting.
Rut. Rut. Rut.
"Graham is walking the grounds. He'll be occupied for another hour. The property has extensive gardens."
Her eyes move over her daughter, her stepson, enjoying the lewd show, then settle on me.
"I want this house. Graham wants his son to be happy. I want my daughter to stop being miserable."
She leans forward, and I smell her perfume—something complex, amber and musk.
"What I don't want is for this to become another source of conflict."
"Conflict arises from denial," I say, my voice steady despite my racing heart. "From wanting and not having. From having and being ashamed."
"Precisely." Patricia's smile widens. "So, we remove the shame. We remove the denial."
God, I doubt even she, and I know, I've never seen a pair, shag the be-Jesus out of each other while someone else is present.
God, youth might lack skill, but they have endless power to shag.
Patrica reaches out, her hand finding my chin, turning my face toward the light.
"You're quite beautiful, Ms Jones. Professional, but not prudish. Ambitious, but not cold."
Her thumb traces my lower lip, and I feel the gesture's weight—assessment, invitation, command.
"I think you should join us. Properly. Not as facilitator, but as... family."
The word hangs in the cedar-scented air. I think of my boss's voice: triple if you close it within the month. I think of my mother's hands, holding dead flowers, teaching me that everything has a price and a purpose.
Chloe climaxes without warning.
"Orrghh!"
Ethan pounds his load into her womb, certainly somewhere frickin extra deep.
"Arrggghh!"
Neither poetic, but is rutting, banging or shagging eloquent?
Exhausted, they collapse into each other's arms.
"Well done, you two. We can buy this house. Create more bliss filled memories."
I say, "God, the family that bangs together is joined together."
Patricia's smile is sunrise breaking through storm clouds. "Exactly."
She reaches for me first, her mouth finding mine with the precision of someone who has planned this moment, rehearsed it in mirrors and dreams.
Behind me, I feel Ethan and Chloe moving closer, their earlier conflict forgotten in the novelty of this new arrangement.
Hands find my blouse, my skirt, the pins in my hair. The harbour light shifts through the glass walls, turning everything gold and transparent, and I let them undress me, let them arrange me on the daybed between them, let Patricia's voice guide us into configurations that serve her vision of family.
Chloe's mouth is soft, surprised, when it finds mine. Ethan's hands are rougher, more certain, shaped by different hungers. Patricia watches from above, directing, adjusting, sometimes joining—her mouth on her daughter's shoulder, her hand on her stepson's back, creating connections, sealing bonds, building the family she wants through the oldest architecture there is.
I lose track of time. Of boundaries. Of the professional distance that was supposed to protect me. When Ethan enters me—when Chloe's mouth finds my breast—when Patricia's fingers trace patterns on my spine that feel like signatures, like claims—I think only of the sale, of the bonus, of survival dressed in silk and sweat and the desperate creativity of people who will do anything to belong somewhere.
I peak as Chloe sucks my boobs. Ethan rejuvenated seeds my fanny. And Patricia's finger rims and pops in and out of my puckered starfish.
Afterwards, we lie tangled on the daybed, four bodies cooling in the afternoon light.
Graham's footsteps crunch on the gravel path outside, distant, unaware.
Patricia sits up first, smoothing her hair, her composure returning like a tide.
"Tomorrow," she says, looking at me with something that might be gratitude or might be ownership. "We'll sign for this property."
She dresses with efficient grace, tossing Chloe her discarded blouse, Ethan his shirt.
"Ms Jones will handle the paperwork. And she'll continue to... consult with us. As needed. Property investment portfolio"
I don't answer. I'm watching the harbour through the glass, watching a ferry cut its slow path toward the city, carrying people to their own complicated arrangements, their own desperate solutions.
Patricia touches my shoulder as she passes, her fingers lingering. "You're one of us now," she whispers. "However, this ends."
She leaves with her children, with her husband waiting outside, with the house she wanted secured through methods no contract would describe.
I stay in the pool house, dressing slowly, collecting my props—my professional smile, my carefully maintained appearance of control.
The harbour waits beyond the glass, indifferent to my arrangements. I think of my mother, of the lessons she taught and the ones she couldn't.
Every sale teaches me something new about what people will trade for the dream of a better life.
I step out into the garden, toward whatever comes next, with the dangerous knowledge that I am very, very good at this.
Well, most of the time.