“No way…you were laid off again?”

Emilia nodded dismally, chasing the olive in her martini glass around with a toothpick. “Yeah, it’s like déjà vu. Another year, another layoff.”

“Fuck, Emi. That sucks.”

“Tell me about it.” Emilia stabbed at the olive, which bobbed aside unscathed, as if it too were mocking her. She glowered. “I’m starting to think I’m cursed or something. The butt of some sick cosmic joke.”

“Definitely unlucky,” Stacy said, smiling slightly in commiseration. She plucked out her own olive with ease and popped it into her rosy mouth. After a few dainty bites, she said, “Maybe the universe is trying to give you a sign, Em. Maybe a career change is in order.”

“What career?” Emilia said, disgruntled. She gave the bobbing olive another half-hearted poke. “I feel like I can’t even get my feet on the ground long enough to have one. Ever since we graduated, all I’ve been doing is working odds jobs while struggling to get a real one. Application after application. Interview after interview. Then finally I land a position, and since I’m the lowest person on the totem pole, I’m always the first to go. It’s demoralizing.”

Stacy gave her a long look. “I’m sorry, Emi.”

Emilia frowned back at her. “Don’t you say it.”

“Say what?”

“‘I told you so.’”

Stacy shook her head. “I wasn’t going to say it. I wouldn’t.”

“But you’re looking it. It’s there, written on your face: ‘I tried to tell you not to major in art history.’”

Stacy sighed, exasperated and wry. “Projecting much, Emi?”

Taking a rueful swig of her drink, which tasted like chemicals and brine, Emilia muttered, “Probably.”

As she downed the last bitter dregs of it, Stacy said, “Here, let me get you another.”

“If I’m having another, then you’ll have to.” Emilia’s mouth crooked mirthlessly. “I’m flat broke as it is.” Glumly, she said, “I don’t know how I’m going to make rent this month. I got the place assuming I’d be gainfully employed.”

Stacy patted her hand. “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry.” With an almond-eyed wink, she added, “But another round first—judge’s orders.”

Stacy was a second-year law student. She was every bit as broke as Emilia, but she was nothing if not resourceful. By ‘get you another’ drink, Stacy meant make eyes with a guy who would buy them both another round. It didn’t take her long. Before Emilia could even blink, a tall handsome guy in a suit came swaggering over. He was the typical Wall Street type.

“What are you ladies drinking?”

Emilia flushed, shifting in her seat, but Stacy just curved a smile. While Emilia sipped on her second martini, Stacy dispensed with the guy after a bit of cursory chitchat—thanking him for the drink, saying that she and her friend were making an evening of it, and then sending him on his way with the fake number she’d given him.

Not for the first time, Emilia found herself in awe of her best friend’s easy charm, her cool head and sheer audacity. It wasn’t the sort of stunt Emilia could see herself pulling off. She just wasn’t the mercenary type. But for Stacy it was almost like recreation. It gave her a thrill to see just how much she could wring out of a guy.

When the Wall Street guy was gone, Stacy turned back to Emilia with a wink. Emilia giggled, feeling pleasurably buzzed.

“Listen,” Stacy said, slurring slightly, “and hear me out.”

“Okay,” Emilia said, giggling again. “I’m listening, but you haven’t said anything.”

“I’m getting to it. That was just the preamble.”

“Okay.”

“Okay,” Stacy said, smiling coyly, “so: I have a way you can cover your rent this month, and then some.”

There was a salacious quality to her tone and look which even two martinis in set Emilia on edge. She’d been privy to enough of Stacy’s devious schemes over the years to have just cause to be anxious. Preemptively, Emilia braced herself for the other shoe to drop. She fixed Stacy with as wary a look as she could manage.

“What’s the catch?”

“There’s no catch, I swear,” Stacy said, her right hand to God. “But you would have to put yourself out there a little.”

Emilia squinted hard at her. “Put myself out there? What’s that supposed to mean?” Her bangs fell into her eyes as she shook her head. “Don’t tell me this is some kind of sex-for-hire thing.”

“Well…”

“No, Stacy.” Emilia crossed her arms at the chest. “No fucking way.”

“Hey, you said you’d hear me out.” When Emilia stayed sulkily silent, Stacy continued on, “It’s not a ‘sex’ thing, per se, but it is erotic.”

“I don’t understand,” Emilia said snidely. “Could you be a little more vague?”

Stacy laughed, giving a helpless little shrug. “I know, I know. I’m sorry, but that’s really all I can say. I wish I could go into more specifics, but I can’t. I had to sign an NDA to get paid.”

Emilia balked. “You what? What kind of cloak-and-dagger sugar daddy operation is this?”

“That’s just it,” Stacy said, her dark eyes glimmering, “it’s not like that at all. That’s why I think you’d be great for it. It’s a classy operation, Em. There’s no real sexual pressure, and everything is handled in the most professional and seamless way imaginable, like clockwork.”

Opening her designer clutch, a sugar-daddy gift if Emilia had ever seen one, Stacy withdrew a business card from her wallet. She slid the card across the bar counter toward Emilia. A lone phone number in dark curling script emblazoned the fine, heavy cardstock.

“All you have to do is call this number, give your name and address, and the Master’s agents will take it from there.”

Emilia glanced dubiously from the card to Stacy. “The Master?”

Stacy flashed her a cryptic smile. “Just take the card and think about it, okay? You can back out at any time, but if you don’t, you’ll be paid in spades. And who knows,” she added slyly, “you might even like it.”

Emilia remained highly skeptical. But at her best friend’s repeated urgings and reassurances, she stuffed the card away into a dark corner of her purse.
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Original Publication Date: 9/4/24

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