2. The Ad
2
THE AD
Nat rolled around on the apartment floor, pulling his shirt up his chubby belly. “I’m so hot!”
Next to him, ten-month-old Wanda licked the brown hair stuck to her sweaty face. Nat flapped a flattened cereal box at her to create a breeze.
Like he expected, Wanda giggled. She sprouted a bushy, striped tail too.
“There we go,” Nat said, grabbing an ice cube from the bowl between them. He touched it to her palm; she yanked her hand away and giggled. “At least you seem to like the ice cubes.”
Wanda smacked her hand into the plastic bowl, so the melting ice cubes bobbed in the water. Nat dipped a washcloth into the bowl and patted her down with it; she tried to eat the washcloth.
“Hey! No eating that!” He tugged the washcloth away, only for her to yowl.
What was her other species? Nat wasn’t sure. But it seemed to help her with the heat—she was her usual cheery self, babbling and attempting to crawl everywhere.
All the same, Nat wished he had a job that could pay the bills. He would’ve run the AC at lower temperatures, instead of depending on their rescuers’ generosity.
But not many jobs allowed him to bring his baby along. Besides, Wanda was especially vulnerable.
They’d already been kidnapped once because she was so rare.
“I want a job,” Nat whined at the ceiling.
“Why don’t you look at some job listings?” his friend Killian asked quietly. Killian was huddled close to his baby, and they seemed to be more tolerant of the heat.
Then again, Killian had bigger problems than the weather.
“I’ll give it a try.” Nat picked up his phone, balancing it in his three-fingered hand to scroll through different websites.
When he found a job opening that sounded good, he painstakingly pecked out a resume. Then he sent it to as many other companies as he could. Without a decent work history, though, he didn’t have much to make himself stand out.
Especially when he was missing three fingers: his middle and ring fingers on his right hand, and his pinky on his left.
And he was chubby, which... Well, he needed to score an interview first to see if it would matter at all.
Either way, Nat knew he looked plain, with his brown hair and brown eyes. He knew he looked forgettable.
When he had exhausted all the listings on his job hunt, he opened up the Cartbook app on his phone. Cartbook was the social media site that everyone used nowadays; Nat had joined some Cartfalls-based groups because people sometimes gave away things that they didn’t need any more.
He scrolled through the posts on his feed, only to pause when one caught his eye.
I’m looking for a personal assistant to help me with my load.
Your job will be to help me in every way. And I mean EVERY way, with as many loads as you can take.
Nat dropped his phone; he was so stunned.
He rescued the phone before Wanda could smack it with her wet hands, hurriedly tapping on the post to read the rest of it.
You will be trained to handle all my needs. You will need to know how to use a computer; scheduling appointments will be one of your duties. You will also need to be good with children and animals. You have to be VERY willing to do whatever I ask, and agree to any and all searches done to you.
Tasks will range from scheduling and errand-running, to performing massages and fulfilling my other bodily needs.
There was a list of seemingly ordinary tasks, and a separate list of... activities... that were required for that position.
Nat kept reading. The promised pay was really fucking high. And there were vacation days, sick leave, health insurance, and a whole other bunch of benefits that Nat didn’t even want to look at, because—
What were the chances of him landing this job?
Killian looked over when he sighed. “What’s wrong?”
“This job.” Nat bookmarked the post, then showed it to Killian. “It sounds too good to be true. I bet they have a million applications already. What do I have that everyone else doesn’t?”
Killian looked at him for a long moment. He opened his mouth, then stopped himself. “I have two suggestions.”
“What’s the first?” Nat asked warily.
“You could say you survived a kidnapping.”
“They’ll think I’m messed up in the head.” Granted, Nat was jumpy and he didn’t feel safe anymore. “What’s your other suggestion?”
Killian gave a rare grin. “You apply as your other self.”
“My—” Nat opened and closed his mouth. “They’re going to delete my resume so fast.”
“They’re not going to expect an animal to apply for the job.” Killian laughed. “Seriously, include a picture of your other face. I bet they’ll read your application, even if they think it’s a joke.”
With that kind of promised pay, Nat was sure the company had been flooded by applications.
“Fine,” he said, deciding to send in a second application under his real name, so he wasn’t shooting himself in the foot. “But you’re helping me take the pictures.”