Chapter 8: Cat's Interview

Dave looked over the paperwork with a frown. Everything seemed to be on the up and up with her paperwork, but he didn't believe she would be here if she had any other choice.

He glanced back up at the woman. She was definitely attractive, wearing business casual clothes with a gold cross around her neck. She was of Hispanic descent, but exhibited more of the Spanish genes than the Indigenous. She had the darker coloring, but with European features and green eyes. She also had a substantial bosom that Andrew would love.

Finally, he asked, "Why?"

"I'm twenty-eight years old, single, and living alone. I have no family. I owe forty-two thousand dollars on my credit cards and I have a student loan to pay off. My rent is nine hundred a month plus utilities. I have no savings. I've been unemployed for almost two years and my unemployment benefits ran out. Every place I've interviewed with takes one look at my credit score and won't hire me," the woman answered.

"So you're desperate."

"I will be homeless in three weeks."

"You said that you're willing to do everything on this list," Dave said holding up the sheet of paper enumerating the various sex acts.

"Yes."

"Are you sure you want to do this?" Dave asked.

"I have to do this."

Dave believed her. There was the air of quiet desperation about her. She would do whatever it took to get through the next few months even if she hated every minute. She would grin and bear it.

She said, "You don't seem too thrilled about hiring me. Is it because of my race?"

"No. You are a wonderfully attractive woman and can bring a lot to this project. It's just that I would feel guilty about leading you into a life of pornography," Dave answered.

He didn't have a problem with pornography, but he did have a problem with exploitation. He felt someone who didn't think they had a choice was, by default, being exploited.

"I don't care. I can't take it any more. I need money. I need to get the bills off my back. You said this was a long term job with good pay," she said with tears welling up in her eyes.

"But..."

"I don't care. For a hundred dollars a day, I'll have anal sex morning, noon, and night. He can even be the ugliest man in America. I just need a job that pays money on a regular basis."

Dave said, "All of your correspondence used your real name. What porn name would you like to use?"

"I don't know."

"We've got an Amber and a Bambi. Uh ... ABC ... something that starts with C ... Uh, how about Cat?"

"Great."

"Okay," Dave said scribbling her porn name on the cover of the folder.

"Is this when you have sex with me?" Cat asked.

"No. You need to go to the other office. Sue Ellen will take photographs of you. We'll put your pictures in front of the investor and I'll let you know what he decides."

"Can you do that today?" Cat asked.

"Why?"

"I can start tomorrow," Cat answered.

"No. You'll need to take a blood test before you can start," Dave said.

Cat pulled out a sheet of paper from her purse and handed it over to Dave. "I went to the free clinic two days ago when I learned that you wanted to interview me. My last sexual experience was eight months ago."

Dave looked at it. The date of the test was from two days ago and the lab results were from this morning. He exhaled and shook his head. She really was desperate.

"I'll see what I can do," Dave said. "Go to the other office."

Cat made the short walk through the reception area to the other office. She entered and said, "I'm Cat."

"Hello, Cat. I'm Sue Ellen. I need to take some pictures of you."

"Naked?"

"Yes, please."

Cat stripped out of her clothes without comment. The way she did it was business-like. There was no pretense of sexiness, but a woman taking off clothes like she was alone in the room. She did keep the gold cross on.

While fiddling with the camera, Sue Ellen asked, "So why are you doing this?"

"I will be homeless in three weeks."

"What about your family? Can't they help you?"

"I have no family," Cat stated flatly.

Sue Ellen said, "I'm sorry to hear that. I don't want to sound crass, but what happened?"

"My oldest brother and his friend decided to try and make a batch of drugs in his bedroom. It blew up, killing him, his friend, Momma, Dad, and my pregnant sister."

"You must have been devastated."

"My brother was a gang banger, his friend was a gang banger, my father was a drunk, and my sister was a whore for the gang. Momma, God rest her soul, was a saint," she said making the sign of the cross when talking about her mother.

"Where were you when the house blew up?"

"I was in class at the Catholic School down the street from my parent's house. We heard the explosion," Cat answered.

"You've had it rough," Sue Ellen said.

"I avoided the gang, finished school, and got a good job," Cat said with pride.

"Good for you. It must have been tough."

"I really thought I had it made until the company I worked for went out of business. The Chinese flooded the market with a low quality knockoff of our product at half the price it cost us to make it. It took them nine months to put us out of business."

Once all of the companies that made the product were gone, the prices had risen. She had known that was going to happen. Knowing that didn't help her any, although she should have searched for a job before they went out of business.

"Outsourcing and undercutting our prices by foreign countries has put a lot of places out of business. A lot of people have lost their jobs," Sue Ellen said.

"I blame Nixon."

"Nixon?"

"He reopened trade relations with China," Cat said.

"I didn't know that," Sue Ellen said.

Cat said, "I am not a stupid woman. I was going to college when the company I worked for went out of business. They were going to reimburse my expenses, but they didn't. I had to drop out before finishing my degree."

"That sucks," Sue Ellen said.

"That's enough about me. How do you want me to pose?"

Reaching over for her bag with the little brushes, Sue Ellen looked at Cat. She stopped and said, "I see that you don't have any pubic hair."

"Porn actresses all seem to be bald down there, so I shaved it off. Is that a problem?"

"That's no problem. I was just going to give you a brush to fluff up any hair you might have had down there."

"I never thought of doing something like that," Cat said.

Sue Ellen started to lead Cat through the photography session. Amber had been a natural while Bambi had been stiff. Cat just treated it like a business. In some of the pictures, it almost looked like she was bored.

"Do you really want this job?" Sue Ellen asked about when she was halfway through the shoot.

"I need this job," Cat answered.

"Would you like a little advice?"

"What?" Cat asked.

"Our investor is looking for sexy. Frankly, you look bored. Bored is not sexy," Sue Ellen said.

"I'll try to do better," Cat said.

Sue Ellen re-shot the sequence of photographs. Cat did look a lot more interested, but it was nowhere near what Sue Ellen had hoped for.

Cat said, "According to what Dave said, I'm going to be having sex with one man and a couple girls for months."

"That's right," Sue Ellen said.

"Isn't that kind of a boring video?" Cat said.

"The guy is nerd. The concept is he's living in a nerd paradise. Nerds dream of being one man surrounded by a bunch of beautiful women who will do any kind of sex act for him. We're hoping that if this trial looks good, then we can do it for real. We're targeting all of the nerds of the world. There's a lot of them and they make good money," Sue Ellen said.

"I guess that makes sense," Cat said.

She figured that the investor would get tired of seeing the same thing over and over. She knew there weren't that many ways to insert tab A into slot B. It wouldn't be long before the investor killed the project and she'd be out of work again.

"We think so," Sue Ellen said.

"It seems to me that this trial is costing a fortune."

"If we can work out the details of what would sell, we could make a thousand times what we spent," Sue Ellen said.

"That's a good return on investment," Cat said thinking that it was doomed to fail.

"We think so."

Cat asked, "What are my chances of getting this job?"

"You've got nice big breasts. The investor is going to like that."

"I've got a brain and it's going to be two sacks of fat that gets me a job," Cat said with a sigh.

Dave said, "No."

"Why not?" Sue Ellen asked.

"She's got no choice," Dave said.

Andrew said, "That doesn't make any sense."

"We'd be exploiting her if she's forced into doing this," Dave said.

Andrew said, "I don't see it that way."

"How do you see it?" Dave asked coldly.

"Well, she could become a prostitute and sell her body on the street. She could become a bag lady and get her meals out of restaurant trash bins. She could go to a real adult video place and get her naked body posted on the web for everyone to see. She could commit suicide. Or, she could make a private video with me and no one would know but us," Andrew said.

With each option Andrew stated, Dave sunk in his chair even more. He knew that Andrew was right. She had no choice because this was the best of the choices she had. That a woman could consider this to be the best of her options was a sad commentary on what had once been a proud country.

"He's right," Sue Ellen said thinking she'd never really heard anyone put the choices that succinctly.

"I hate to admit it, but you're right," Dave said. "I just don't like it."

"I know you don't," Andrew said.

"Can't you hire her to work around the office?"

Andrew said, "I've already hired someone."

"Who?" Sue Ellen asked.

"Ken Davenport. He's a programmer," Andrew said.

He had decided that where ever possible, he would try to find wounded warriors to work for his company. He knew that he couldn't help every vet returning from war, but he could help a few who had the skills he required. A little bit here and a little bit there was something. It was more than what he had done.

Dave asked, "Ken Davenport?"

"Yes."

Still not sure that he understood correctly, Dave asked, "My roommate from the hospital in Germany?"

"Yes," Andrew answered.

"I bet he's ecstatic," Dave said sitting back in his chair...

"He was a little excited," Andrew said. "We're waiting for him to get medically cleared. He was hurt a lot more than you. It's taking them a little longer to put him back together. You do know that he lost his arm?"

"I know," Dave said.

Sue Ellen knew Ken Davenport. She was pleased to learn that he had a future. He had been very worried about what the future held for him while he had been in the hospital. She decided that she was going to have a little talk with Amber. Someone needed to do something real nice for Andrew.

Wanting to return to the topic at hand, Andrew said, "So are we agree on Cat?"

"I guess. I don't like it, but go ahead and hire her," Dave said resigned to knowing that he couldn't save Cat from doing this.

"Look. We let her move in when she's ready to move in. She'll go to the doctor and get a blood test that we trust. I won't have sex with her until she gets the results back and she has to make the first move at having sex with me. I'll give her a month," Andrew said.

"That's fair," Dave said.

"So call her," Andrew said.

"She doesn't have a phone. I'll email her," Dave said.

Andrew looked puzzled. He asked, "She doesn't have a phone, but she has email?"

"Library computers," Dave said.

"That's horrible," Andrew said with a grimace. "That's like ... uh ... I don't know ... Disgusting."

"Like using a used rubber," Dave suggested.

"Exactly."

Sue Ellen rubbed her forehead.

Andrew picked up the folder and looked at the pictures inside. The woman did have a nice pair of assets. He put the folder down and got up to return to his office.

As a parting shot, he said, "She's got nice hooters."

"Yes, she does," Sue Ellen said rubbing her temples with the fingers of both hands.

She was wondering that if Amber had tits, Bambi had breasts, and Cat had hooters, what did Dave call her breasts?

As if reading her thoughts, Dave leaned over whispered, "Mine."

"Yours?"

"Your breasts are mine and don't you forget that," Dave said with a smile.

Amber was seated by the pool soaking up a little sun. She was naked working on an all body tan although she had slathered so much SPF 50 sun block on her body that it was highly unlikely that she'd make any progress on it. Still, it was nice to pretend. It was a good way to spend an afternoon when Andrew was at work and Bambi was in school.

The time alone in the house was bringing out feelings that she never knew that she had. For one, she had really gotten into the whole housewife mindset. She straightened up the room making it nice and neat before the maid arrived to take care of the house. She cooked breakfast every day and dinner most nights. The exceptions on dinner were those nights when Andrew took them out to eat.

She spent most of her time, though, planning her future for when the video gig came to an end. It was an amazingly simple plan and one that she was already following despite the fact that there were a few details missing.