ASTERWICK 03 - The Realtor (Patreon)

09.09.26 – 11:25 a.m.

For Sale Property – North Asterwick

Kara Marks – Current: 5’5” 128lbs

Kara Marks arrived fifteen minutes early because new agents did not get to be merely on time. The sign in the yard still leaned a little to the left, which bothered her enough that she set down her folder, braced one heel in the damp grass, and shoved the post until FOR SALE faced the street with proper confidence. The affluent North Pine neighborhood did not forgive crooked signs. North Pine noticed everything.

The house sat on Asterwick’s northern rise, where the streets curved politely around old firs and the houses wore stone trim, cedar shakes, and tasteful landscaping like proof of good breeding. The three-bedroom, two-bath listing on Bellweather Lane was not the largest house Kara had ever shown, but it had light, a deep backyard, and a kitchen island big enough to make any newly married couple imagine hosting people they secretly hoped would cancel.

Kara loved that moment. The imagining. The little forward lean people did when a house started borrowing pieces of their future. She loved it in part because Claire Henson-Whitmore and Daniel Whitmore were her kind of clients: young enough to be excited, cautious enough to ask questions, and polite enough not to mention that Kara looked younger than some people’s babysitters. She was twenty-five, licensed, energetic, overprepared, and very tired of the senior agents at PNW Realty calling her kiddo when they wanted her to print disclosures.

A silver hatchback pulled to the curb at 11:24. Kara checked her watch, smiled at the punctuality, and moved down the walkway with her folder tucked under one arm. Daniel got out first, tall and broad-shouldered in a rain jacket that still had fold marks from the store. Claire followed, shaking dark hair from the collar of a green sweater and looking up at the house with the wary hope of someone trying not to fall in love with anything too expensive.

“Claire and Daniel?” Kara asked. “Kara Marks. Thanks so much for coming out.” “Thanks for meeting us,” Claire said, taking her hand. “And sorry if we ask too many questions.” Daniel laughed. “She means sorry in advance for me. I made a spreadsheet.” Kara brightened immediately. “I love spreadsheets. That means you’re serious enough to know the difference between charm and bad storage.”

Claire laughed, and some of the tightness went out of her shoulders. Daniel looked relieved in the way spouses did when the professional person understood their weirdness. Kara counted that as a point in her favor. Not that she was keeping score. She absolutely was keeping score.

“So, first move to Asterwick?” Kara asked as she unlocked the front door. “First move as a married couple,” Claire said. She held up her left hand, where a new ring flashed neatly under the porch light. “Still getting used to saying husband.” “Still getting used to responding to it,” Daniel said. “My mother has weaponized the word.”

“Congratulations,” Kara said, pushing the door open with the practiced ease of someone who had rehearsed welcoming gestures in the mirror and then pretended she had not. “And welcome to the stage of marriage where you start having passionate opinions about closet depth.” Daniel pointed at Claire. “She already has those.” Claire pointed back. “He thinks a garage is a personality.”

Kara stepped aside and let them enter first. The house accepted them with a soft breath of cool air and new paint. The foyer opened into a living room with wide front windows and a clean view of the street, the kind of view that made people imagine Christmas lights before they admitted they were thinking about Christmas lights. Kara began her tour voice, warm but not sugary, confident but not pushy. She had worked on that too.

“You’ve got new flooring through the main room, updated windows, gas heat, and the sellers replaced the roof three years ago. They also had the crawlspace inspected in May, so if either of you has a secret passion for drainage reports, today is your lucky day.” Daniel raised one hand halfway. “I don’t want to say passion.” “Please don’t,” Claire said. “But he did print the inspection notes.”

They moved through the living room, past the first bedroom, then the second. Daniel measured doorways with his eyes. Claire touched windowsills, cabinet pulls, the edge of a built-in shelf, as if houses revealed themselves through texture. Kara noticed all of it. She had been told by Bev Dunwood, senior agent and office queen, that younger buyers needed handholding. Kara had decided younger buyers needed listening.

“Daniel’s starting with Alder Crown Timber next month,” Claire said as they entered the hall. “That’s the reason for the move.” “Logging?” Kara asked. Daniel gave the quick, apologetic shrug of a person used to explaining an industry people had opinions about. “Operations side. Roads, contracts, safety planning. My dad worked mills. I swore I wouldn’t. Then I went to school for logistics and somehow ended up circling back.”

“Asterwick does that,” Kara said. “It lets people leave just long enough to come back with better shoes and more complicated taxes.” Claire looked amused. “Are you from here?” “Born at Saint Brigid’s, raised three streets from the old mill, escaped to Eugene for college, came back with a real estate license and a heroic misunderstanding of work-life balance.” Kara smiled. “My mother says ambition is cute until it starts emailing after nine. My broker says emailing after nine is how listings get won.”

The kitchen sold itself before Kara could. Sunlight slipped through the sliding glass door and spread across pale counters, stainless appliances, and the long island at the center of the room. Claire made a small sound she probably meant to hide. Daniel looked at her, then at the island, then back at her with the expression of a man watching his budget develop a limp.

“This is dangerous,” Claire said. “This kitchen makes me think I’m the kind of person who owns serving platters.” “You could become that person,” Kara said. “Real estate is mostly helping people become the version of themselves who buys the serving platters.” Daniel leaned over the sink to check the backyard. “Does that version of us also garden?” “Only if you want it to,” Kara said. “The backyard needs some love, but the space is there.”

She was about to open the pantry when heat bloomed under her ribs. Not warmth. Not nerves. Heat. It rushed through her center in one sudden wave, pouring down into her hips and up through her chest so fiercely that she stopped with her hand on the knob. For half a second she thought the furnace had kicked on beneath the floor. Then her knees softened.

Kara tightened her fingers around the pantry knob. The brass felt too small and too sharp in her grip. Sweat broke at the back of her neck. Her white PNW Realty polo, freshly tucked and pressed that morning with the seriousness of a woman going to war against office assumptions, clung suddenly between her shoulder blades. “You okay?” Claire asked.

“Perfect,” Kara said brightly, which was a terrible word choice because her voice came out thin and shining. “I left the disclosure packet in the laundry room. Give me one second, and then I’ll show you the primary suite.” She did not wait to see whether this made sense. She smiled, turned from the pantry, and made it three careful steps into the side hall before the smile fell off her face.

The hallway narrowed between the kitchen and a small laundry nook, close enough that Claire’s bracelet ticked softly against the counter behind her. Kara caught herself against the wall with one palm. Fresh paint dragged under her fingers. Heat pulsed through her again, deeper this time, filling her thighs and belly, pressing outward from the inside until even standing still required strategy.

“What is happening right now,” she whispered. The first surge rolled through her like a fever learning rhythm. Her spine drew straight against her will. Her shoulders pulled back. The polo tightened across her chest and upper arms with a soft, cruel stretch of knit fabric. Her dark slacks pinched at her hips, then pulled close through her thighs as her body seemed to fill them from every direction. Kara bent forward, hands braced on her knees, and clamped her teeth around the sound climbing up her throat. The feeling was like a really good stretch but amplified to something like arousal.

Inside the kitchen, Daniel said something about cabinet hinges. Claire answered from only a few steps away. Their voices were ordinary and curious and devastatingly calm. Kara could see them through the strip of doorway if she turned her head too far. She pressed one hand to her stomach. Muscles tightened under her palm, not in neat gym lines, but in swelling, functional bands, firming as though years of strength had been poured into her all at once and told to find room.

Claire’s footsteps shifted toward the hall. Kara’s head snapped up. The laundry nook stood open beside her, barely more than a stacked washer, a utility sink, and a narrow door to the deck. She slipped into it sideways just as the second surge hit. This one found her legs. She gripped the rim of the sink with both hands and felt her thighs thicken beneath the dark slacks. The seams strained. Her calves bunched hard above her flats, skin prickling as pressure built downward into her feet. She rose by inches, the upper cabinets dropping into her vision.

“Kara?” Claire called. “Do you need help finding it?” Kara stared at the empty utility shelf where no disclosure packet waited. She swallowed once, twice, and made her voice behave. “No, I’ve got it! It slid behind the washer.” Her fingers tightened on the sink until the thin metal lip gave a soft pop. She let go immediately and shoved both hands under her arms, as if she could hide the evidence of her strength.

A laugh nearly tore out of her at the absurdity of it, but the third surge stole it. Her back broadened against the polo, the PNW Realty logo stretching over her chest as the fabric pulled smooth. Kara’s arms lengthened, forearms heavy and warm, hands flexing as her fingers felt suddenly stronger than they had any right to be. Her watch bit into her wrist. She fumbled it loose and shoved it into her pocket before the band could snap.

Daniel appeared at the edge of the kitchen, close enough that Kara saw his shadow cross the hall. She dropped low beside the washer, or tried to. Her new thighs made the movement awkward and powerful, the dark slacks pulling tight across her hips and straining down both legs, her larger glutes threatening to explode out of fabric’s confines. Every shift pressed her toes harder into the fronts of her flats. The shoes had been sensible black leather when she bought them. They now felt like individual prisons for her feet.

“Everything good?” Daniel asked. Kara glanced at the deck door over her shoulder. Outside was only six feet away. It might as well have been another country. Another wave gathered low in her belly, huge and hot. “Almost!” she called, and hated the breathless edge in her voice. “Just wrestling with the washer.”

She opened the deck door with hands that shook from restraint, not weakness, and slipped outside before either client could reach the hall. The final surge hit on the first step down into the yard. Kara’s spine arched. Her body stretched upward and outward in one relentless push. Her polo pulled tight enough to flatten every wrinkle, the small company logo distorted by the strain, the hem riding slowly higher over the hardened ridges of her abdomen. Her slacks climbed and strained around hips and thighs that had become too much for their tidy professional cut; she grunted as the fabric caught against the swelling width of her calves. Weight settled onto her frame, dense and undeniable, filling her shoulders, arms, legs, and middle until she felt anchored to the earth and rising above it at the same time.

Her flats surrendered last. Pressure crushed her toes forward, leather stretching, seams squeaking in panic. Kara bit the inside of her cheek as her feet spread wider, longer, too large for the neat little shoes. The right one split across the side with a sharp crack. The left followed a second later, the front bursting open as her toes pushed through into the damp grass.

For several seconds, Kara could only stand there beside the deck steps, screened from the kitchen window by a heavy hydrangea, her round, full chest heaving, The white cotton bra she donned this morning absolutely about to split apart, sweat running down her temples and into the collar of her polo. The world looked subtly lower. The deck rail sat beneath her hand instead of in front of her. Her body felt packed full of impossible readiness, nearly six feet of it, nearly fifty pounds heavier than the woman who had straightened the sign in the yard.

Then, as suddenly as it had come, the pressure began to recede. Not vanish. Recede, like tidewater dragging itself back from a beach and leaving everything ruined and wet behind it. Kara sagged against the fence while heat drained from her limbs. Her height slipped downward by degrees. Her shoulders narrowed enough for the polo to stop screaming. Her slacks loosened, though not enough to forgive her. The flats remained dead at her feet.

Kara waited until her breathing no longer sounded like evidence. Then she peeled the destroyed shoes off, one after the other, and picked them up by the heels. Her toes were grass-stained. Her polo clung to her sweaty back. Her short blonde hair had fallen loose around her flushed face in damp, frantic strands. She wiped her face with the least ruined part of her sleeve, straightened to what she hoped was a professional posture, and walked barefoot across the deck. Kara was aware that her breasts hadn’t fully read the memo about shrinking back to normal. They pressed insistently against the bra meant for a lesser woman but she ignored them.

Claire and Daniel were standing by the island when she came in. Both turned. Both looked at her flushed face, her sweat-soaked polo, the ruined flats dangling from one hand, and the controlled smile she had pinned to herself with sheer professional determination. Kara lifted the shoes slightly, as if this explained anything.

“Good news,” she said. “The backyard has tremendous potential. It does, however, need a little work.” Daniel blinked. Claire’s mouth opened, then closed again. The married couple exchanged a look Kara could not interpret and did not intend to help them interpret. She set her ruined shoes on the floor beside the sliding door, as she reached for her folder, movement beyond the side fence caught her eye: a plain white van easing away from the curb, too quickly to belong to a neighbor and too quietly to announce itself. Then it turned the corner and vanished. “Now. Should we head to the primary suite?”