know you need the money.”
“Yeah. I’ll think about it,” I said.
I did think about it. I almost went mad thinking about it. I got so horny I could barely sleep. My mind was full of images of me bent over Adam’s knee, his strong, sure hand landing expertly on my bare ass again and again, before turning me over and having me suck on what I assumed to be a truly magnificent cock. I mean, his hands were big, so it only stood to reason. Or so I had been led to believe.
I was just desperate enough to try fingering myself when my alarm went off. The universe was no doubt laughing at its own hilarious joke. It was not quite as funny as the platypus or the minuscule length of the average human life but still, this trick was in the top twenty classics, at least.
Ignoring the fire raging down below, I got Ingrid ready for the day and did my best to prepare myself for another day of honest toil. Sadly, the pay didn’t rise along with the hours. I worked on a contract. What else was I to expect?
“Coming!” I called, in response to Astrid’s knock on my bedroom door.
Just not in the way I wish I was! I thought.
“Where is the little munchkin?” I asked her, once I was up.
“Oz, last time I checked.”
“ I’ll get her,” I said, already on my way to the living room where Freya amused herself with one of the more bizarre episodes of The Muppet Show.
“Holy smoke!” shouted Statler and Waldorf as I turned off the set, in response to Fozzie’s inquiry about what the villagers said when the church burned down.
“Oooly thmoke!” Freya parroted, clapping her little hands.
“Bit young for Black Metal, isn’t she?” Astrid queried, feigning concern.
“Hilarious. You’re a regular Jay Lame-o.”
“Wow, you are old.”
“I’m twenty-seven!”
“Still, yikes. What’s next? Five minutes on 8-tracks and airplane food?”
“Here, have a baby,” I said, foisting Freya upon her.
“Just what I’ve always wanted!” Astrid enthused, wiping away a phantom tear.
Freya applauded her approval.
“At least someone thinks you’re funny.”
“I do appeal to a younger demographic,” Astrid confirmed, taking Freya to her playroom.
My “office” set up wasn’t much, but it was enough to do what I needed. Usually I worked as a researcher for academics and sometimes in the business sector. Researching books and articles, I got paid for writing reports in which I summarized my findings.
The pay was great, but jobs could be a bit inconsistent. After the outbreak it dried up almost completely. Maybe one or two contracts a month. Even at $30 dollars an hour, they usually only needed six to eight hours each and so the overall pay just wasn’t enough to get by on.
So, I did the unthinkable. Like an artist doing greeting cards or an actress modelling for burlesque photos, I started doing market research. It was really just a fancy name for consumer surveys.
It didn’t pay nearly as well, but I was to the point where I could do over fifty per day, which kept our heads above water. The rent-controlled apartment I’d inherited from my grandmother helped immensely.
It was worse than usual today, though. Most of the surveys I clicked on were dead ends. The preliminary questions determined that I wasn’t qualified to take the survey because I didn’t represent the right demographic, or some such rot.
This made me angry. I could understand if the survey was about men’s protective sporting wear or some other very specific niche, but who didn’t like coffee and power tools? Okay, a lot of people, but that shouldn’t be enough to preclude me from counting in the stats. A lot of the time, I realized I was a very rare case of someone crying internally, ‘I just want to be a number!’
Finally, after much disappointing and shameless lying as I tried to give the answers I thought they wanted, I was finally let through the gates and into the promised land of paid level surveys. After twenty thrilling minutes of multiple-choice questions about frozen vegetables for a whopping total of thirteen dollars, I was about to pack it in.
When I went out into the kitchen area of the apartment, the wine filled the glass in a delightful way. So scrumptious looking was the beverage that I gave into temptation, nearly emptying the glass in one go. Replenishing the level, I went back to the office before it was too late.
The submission page was still up, complete with the paltry sum