Total pages in book: 30
Estimated words: 28488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 28488 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 142(@200wpm)___ 114(@250wpm)___ 95(@300wpm)
Or I can try my luck with this creep. Unlike the other weird ads in the rooms for rent listings, this one has an offer of money on top of the willing vessel stuff. A hundred grand. Up front, even. This is some weirdo rich guy looking for someone to fuck. Probably old enough to be my grandfather if I had to guess, but I urgently need a place to stay, and that money would help a lot.
“I’m going to call this guy,” I say.
“You can’t be serious, Clara.”
“What else am I going to do? What part of thirty bucks in my bank account and twenty in my wallet don’t you understand?”
“How did it get so bad?”
“Ask my father. He’s the one who keeps stealing the rent money to go out drinking.” Among other things, I’d bet. It seems really hard to spend my entire paycheck on just booze.
“You can’t seriously call this guy. It’s some sort of scam at best. At worst, it’s a setup and you’ll end up somewhere in eastern Europe being auctioned off.”
“If something doesn’t smell right I’ll step away immediately. I’m not that dumb, Deb.”
“You’re making me think you are if you call him.”
“Desperate times call for desperate measures. I have no choice but to take this chance.”
Deb slinks back to her seat. I step over to the next table for a bit more quiet, and dial the number. I’m expecting it to be dead, maybe the ad is someone’s idea of a joke.
Two rings are all it takes before I hear someone pick up, though. “Hello?” a gruff, deep voice says on the other end.
“Um, hello,” I say, nervous about how to approach this. Is this me looking for a room? No. He wants to hire me. It’s a job. Doing what? I have no idea. “I’m calling about the ad? The one you put in the miscellaneous section?”
“Mmm. Yes. So you’re considering becoming my willing vessel, then?”
He doesn’t sound ancient, which surprises me. “If everything is as you say it is, yes.”
“I wouldn’t have written it as such if I didn’t intend those to be the terms. I am Sebastian Montgomery, and you are?”
“Clara Thompson,” I say. Montgomery? Isn’t that the name of the richest family in this city? It definitely adds believability to all of this, but it’d be easy to pretend to be one of them. I’ll look up his name when the call is done.
“Clara? Lovely. May I have a full-body picture of you?”
I swallow, nervous. I know what this is about. I should have expected my appearance to come into this. I raise the phone to get as much as myself in the frame as possible before snapping a photo and sending it. Out of the corner of my eye, I see Deb do a very animated eye roll.
“Yes. Yes, you’ll do quite nicely. You’re hired. I’ll text you my address and ask you to make your way here tomorrow afternoon. Bring your things with you.”
“Uh, thank you?”
“I’m looking forward to seeing you, Clara. I’m looking forward to seeing all of you.”
The call ends. Surprisingly short for a job offering me six figures just for signing on.
I sit back down across from Deb.
“How’d the interview go?” she says with a loud slurp of coffee.
“I got the job.”
“Without even showing him your resume. Figures you’re pretty enough for some ancient lech to play with.”
“I don’t think he’s ancient. At least he didn’t sound like that.”
“Did you get his name?”
“Yes. Sebastian Montgomery. And he wants me at his place tomorrow afternoon.”
“Sebastian Montgomery?” Deb raises her eyebrow as she types something into her phone. “Oh. I knew that sounded familiar. That’s the son and heir of Torvald Montgomery. Real old money, I think they mostly live off their investments at this point.”
“Soo... just the type to pay a woman a hundred thousand just for showing up?”
“They’ve got more money than God, so giving you that much is like a customer tipping me five bucks. It’s nothing to them.”
“But it’s a whole lot to me.”
“Maybe you should negotiate for more to be his ‘willing vessel.’” Every time she says it, she does very sarcastic air quotes.
“If I do one month of this, Deb, I’ll have enough to live frugally for five years, maybe more. I want to get my degree more than anything and if I can make money a non-issue while I do that? Maybe this weirdness is worth it.”
“I still think it’s suspicious. But I can’t stop you. I just want you to stay safe, Clara. Your jackass father might not give a damn about you, but I do.”
I pick up my phone to order a ride home.
Deb stops me. “Let me pay for this one. And tell me where you need to go tomorrow, I’ll get that one as well. That way the address is in my phone if I gotta call the police about you being missing.”