The Housemaid's Tale

A wealthy man (Charles Dera) comes down the stairs of his house and turns the corner into the living room. He is distracted by his phone, and without looking, he accidentally bumps into a woman (Valentina Nappi), a housemaid who was cleaning in the room. He apologizes, and remarks that she must be the new maid the cleaning company sent over. She responds yes, with a noticeable accent but her english is otherwise quite good. He welcomes her to the payroll, and she replies 'Thank you, Mr. Bradley' in a polite and respectful tone. He tells her there's no need to be so formal, please call him Trent. He asks her for her name -- he's clearly into her. She introduces herself as Rosa. As he listens he notices her accent more, and asks her where she's from. She replies that she's Italian. 'Ah, Italian!' he exclaims, and boasts that he speaks a little Italian himself. He recites a small phrase in French, and Rosa nervously responds that she doesn't know French. Trent dismisses his blunder, then boasts that he travels a lot for work and he's been all over the world. He asks if she likes to travel and she says that she'd never been out of Italy until she moved here a few months ago, her family didn't have much money growing up and since coming to the States she's been cleaning houses for a living and sending some of her wages back to them when she can afford to. Trent misses the point, and tells her that she's missing out if she's never traveled for fun, getting uncomfortably close to Rosa. It's clear that she's unhappy with his close proximity, but he either doesn't notice or doesn't care. Trent seems emboldened by what he mistakes as Rosa being friendly instead of just polite. He asks her if she's ever been to one of the local Italian restaurants, a fancy-sounding one. Rosa gives a strained smile at his tone-deaf question and says no, she hasn't. Trent was clearly expecting this answer, and says that's perfect, he can take her there sometime! There's no better five-star restaurant in the area, he knows the head chef personally. Rosa interrupts him and tells him she's flattered, but she makes it a policy not to date clients. Trent's smile wavers, and he starts chuckling to himself out of embarrassment. 'Oh what, you thought I was asking you out on a date?' he laughs, and then in a bit of a more petty tone, he says 'You must think I'm some kind of fucking loser to pay my maid to go on a date with me.' Rosa starts to apologize, she thought- 'Yeah, I know what you thought,' Trent interrupts, and his rude tone gradually gets worse as he starts to rant at her. 'Let me tell you, I do just fine. I've dated supermodels, I've dated fucking pop stars, trust me, I don't need to be hitting on my fucking maid, OK?' As her boss gets more and more riled up, Rosa tries to calm him down. Finally she admits he's right, she's so sorry, and to make him feel better about himself she lies and says she must have misunderstood, english isn't her first language after all, she sometimes misunderstands things. The fact she acted like he was right seems to cool Trent down, and he starts to treat her nicely again, patronizing her even. Oh, of course, how silly of him, apology accepted. Sometimes he forgets who he's talking to, but he didn't mean to be so insensitive. He'll try to speak a bit slower from now on so she can understand better. Reluctantly, Rosa says thank you, and he says he'll leave her to her work then. He walks past her and gives her a pat on the shoulder, not noticing that she flinches slightly at his touch. He keeps walking away from the camera and out of focus, as Rosa stands there looking shaken. TITLE PLATE CUT TO days later, Rosa is on her knees scrubbing the floor with a sponge or rag, and wearing rubber cleaning gloves. She is wearing a nicer outfit than the previous encounter, one that accents her curves nicely and reveals a bit of her legs and cleavage, though it still looks on the plain, sensible and affordable side. She's wearing a cleaning apron to keep the clothes relatively clean. Trent comes down the stairs and quietly approaches nearer to her, with the camera following his male gaze POV as he watches her with voyeuristic intent. After a long moment of watching her silently, Trent says what a nice dress she's wearing. Rosa is startled for a moment, then sighs in relief. 'I didn't see you standing there, Mr. Bradley!' she scolds him with a nervous laugh. He apologizes for scaring her, and says he hopes she's not still on edge from what happened the other day. Rosa, clearly lying, says no, of course not, he's the customer and it's her job to keep him happy. Trent, oblivious, says that's good and he's glad they were able to work things out. He watches for a few more moments and then compliments her on the dress. She looks up at him with a smile and says thanks, does he like it? She's wearing it for someone special. Trent raises his eyebrows, grins, and says 'Are you, now,' thinking she meant him. Rosa says yes as she turns her attention back to scrubbing, and continues saying she has something very special planned for the night. Trent asks her to go on, and she seems to warm up to him a bit since his apology and becomes a bit more talkative. She tells him she's planning a romantic candlelit dinner, followed by a delicious dessert... although if all goes according to plan, 'we won't make it to dessert!' She lets out a hearty laugh. Trent remarks that that's very forward of her to say. Rosa looks back at him with a wink and says that she's Italian, passion runs in her. She and Trent continue to talk about her planned special night, with him still thinking it's him she's talking about. She asks if she can leave an hour early to get ready and he agrees. Rosa thanks him graciously as she starts to collect her supplies from around the floor, and says that her boyfriend is going to be so surprised. Mr. Bradley's face cracks, her boyfriend? Rosa says yes, her boyfriend, for their three month anniversary, didn't she say so earlier? Mr. Bradley gets up slowly and starts to walk towards her with a heavy step. No, he says angrily, she didn't say so earlier. Rosa starts to say oh, well who else did he think she was referring to? But before she can finish, Trent interrupts her in a raised voice. 'I'm not paying you to run off and fuck your fucking boyfriend!' he shouts. He continues, talking about how she's prancing around in the dress, trying to turn him on, and now she's going to reject him to go fuck her boyfriend? And she wants him to pay for it? All it takes is one phone call from him and she'll be deported so fast. Trent stomps past her and kicks the bucket of water next to her, causing it to spill onto the floor. There, he says without looking back at her, there's some work to do, she can clean that up. The next day, Rosa arrives at the house and is surprised to be met by Trent upon arrival. She remarks nervously that she didn't expect him home this morning, usually he's in the office until much later. How was her date? Trent asks. Rosa says nervously that it was fine, but doesn't elaborate. Trent looks her up and down, seeing she's wearing very plain clothes. He remarks that she's not all dressed up today, in fact pretty much the opposite. Rosa replies that these clothes seemed more work-appropriate. Trent tells her he disagrees - he liked it when he could see a bit of skin. In fact, he wants to see a lot more. He wants her to strip naked and clean his house in the nude today. Rosa spins around, clutching her supplies in shock. He wants what? Trent says, 'You don't want all that money to stop going to your parents, do you?' She's worried and says that he wouldn't do that, and he says, 'You can try me!' He then tells her that he just wants to help her and her family... Looking sad and humiliated, Rosa reluctantly says 'fine' and starts stripping out of her clothing, throwing them onto the floor in what little protest she can give. As she strips, Trent stares with great interest. When she's finally naked, he instructs her to start cleaning. She begins scrubbing down the sink and he tells her she missed a spot, and another spot, and another... Rosa turns and see that Trent has his cock out. She recoils, saying that this has gone too far while Trent says it's only just started. As he undresses, he tells her that it'd be a shame if she had to fly away, never to see her boyfriend again... Does she understand the words that are coming out of his mouth? So she knows what she has to do. Rosa's hesitant but finally goes down on her knees with a defeated, 'fine.'