Chapter Text
When I first saw the ad on Craigslist, I scrolled right by it.
I was browsing for odd jobs I could do to pull in a little extra cash. My cat, Donut, was laying on my chest and purring up a storm, kneading her paws into my belly. I was laying on my back, lazily dragging one hand through her fur as I relaxed on the bed.
Although, calling it a "bed" was pretty generous. It was more like a mattress.
When I had moved out of my ex-girlfriend Beatrice’s apartment, I had split with pretty much nothing. I hadn’t had much when I had first moved in with her and what little I did have, and didn’t sell off, could be packed up in two boxes. It was now the sixth day in my new apartment and I still hadn't bought a bedframe for my bare mattress. Or a sofa, for that matter. Or chairs. Or any sort of furniture whatsoever.
The only furniture I ended up leaving with was the TV I’d bought from a pawn shop a while back and one of Donut’s cat trees. I was honestly sort of surprised Bea had let me take it, but I supposed that with the amount I had forked over for Donut already, a cat tree was the least Bea could give me.
I got cable from my phone plan and I knew that the TV was going to be crucial towards getting Donut adjusted to the new apartment. She had always had terrible separation anxiety and having the sound of people being around and talking seemed to calm her down.
I scratched the cat’s neck under her collar and she leaned into my hands, purring contentedly as I browsed on my phone. I wasn’t sure what possessed me to scroll back up to the ad. Maybe it was just simple curiosity. Maybe it was the fact I'd sold pretty much everything I had just to afford this place, with Donut. Whatever it was, I found myself staring at the job posting.
Wanted: Male Foot Model
After a moment of hesitation, I clicked on the ad.
Wanted: Male Foot Model
Are you a real Salt Of The Earth kind of guy? Do you work a blue collar job? Do you get home at night and take your socks and shoes off, first thing you do, just trying to get comfortable after a long day of work?
I've got a foot fetish. If you're reading this, you might have the feet I'm looking for. Send me a clean pic of your feet and I'll send you $100. More if I like the look of you ;) Let’s work something out <3
Men Only
Serious Inquiries Only
Yeah, this… this really wasn’t the sort of job for me. Even putting aside the whole foot fetish thing, I definitely wasn't interested in taking pictures of myself and sending them to some perv online for cash; it just wasn't something I was going to do. That was the sort of thing someone like Brad, the dude my ex-girlfriend cheated on me with, would do. That guy was always taking pictures of himself, making the same stupid duck face in every one of them. His Instagram page was full of the selfie-pose. Until he’d shown up at my apartment, the only time I ever saw the guy was while he was making that dumbass face in a picture.
That's how I found out. In a picture. He hadn't posted it, though. That had been Bea. Like she was telling on herself.
About a month ago, Bea went on a trip to the Bahamas for a week long New Years celebrations with a couple of her friends. When she told me about the trip, she didn't tell me that her ex-boyfriend would be going as well. But that was fine, right? There would be plenty more vacations to go on in the future.
Bea had always had attention problems, but I hadn't actually thought she'd cheat on me. I just didn't think she had it in her, I guess. I always figured, if you don't want to be with someone, just break up and move on, right? So I did. I don't like drama. I called her up and broke it off with her right there on the phone. I told her that when she got back, all her stuff would be packed for her, and then I turned my phone off.
I even started angrily packing her crap up before I remembered I would never be able to afford our apartment without her. About ten minutes after that realization, and I was done with the pity party and looking for new apartments. I wanted to have a game plan figured out before Bea got back from vacation. I wanted a clean break.
There was only one little problem with that - her name was Princess Donut.
Princess Donut was an award-winning, long-haired, tortie Persian showcat. She and Beatrice had competed in various cat shows throughout the country for the cat's entire life, and she had the ribbons, awards, and an award room, to prove it. Bea loved Princess Donut. She used to, at least.
A few months ago, Donut and Beatrice won some big cat show. I didn’t know that much about it at the time, but apparently it was a really big deal amongst the cat-show people, and they were all clamoring to get Donut knocked up and pregnant with the next generation of winners. Ever since then, Bea’s mom had been pressing Bea to give Donut up to her and “let her retire.” I got the feeling that Bea was going to cave soon, and we had been fighting about it. She'd been saying it was the perfect time to "start thinking about Donut's legacy," which really just meant "time to pump some kittens into her."
Maybe it was vulgar of me to think of it like that, but fuck. Cat show people, man. Fuck cat show people.
For the last few months, Bea had been spending less time at home. At first, I thought it was a good thing. She was just being more social. At some point, I realized she was really just avoiding home. I thought it was because she was feeling guilty about the decision she was going to make, the decision to give Donut up to her parents. She was bracing herself for it, I could tell. I was bracing myself for it, too. I knew the fallout would be terrible and I was not looking forward to it.
I thought she felt guilty about Donut.
I was so fucking stupid. Such an idiot.
I should have known something like this would have happened, and when it did, I didn't make a big deal of it. Bea rushed home that same night and I spent the night on the sofa, inventorying my things, trying to figure out what I could take and what I would have to sell to afford taking Donut with me. The answer to that ended up being "almost everything."
The problem in question meowed demandingly where she sat on my lap. Her large fluffy tail waved in the air behind her as it flicked in irritation.
"Alright, alright. I'm petting you, sheesh."
Maybe weirdos talked to their cats, but alone as I was, I couldn't find it in me to care.
Still, one hundred bucks a pop? For what, taking a picture?
That wasn't a realistic amount of money for this sort of thing, was it? I mean, yeah, it was fetish material, but you could get a picture of someone's feet anywhere, especially if your standards are as vague as "Males Only." Foot fetishes were more common than people thought - Bea was always watching TMZ and they loved writing nonsense stories about one celebrities' or another secret foot fetish. It wasn't rare.
No one in their right mind would post this sort of personal ad. That was absolutely ridiculous - nobody would actually pay a hundred dollars for a picture of someone's foot, right? This had to be some sort of scam. You can find pictures of people’s feet online. Hell, there was a dedicated website just for celebrities’ feet pics. It's not like feet pics were hard to come by.
Donut rolled over on my chest and meowed demandingly at me. I had momentarily ceased my petting and quickly corrected this folly, bringing my hand back up to pet her. I moved my hand slowly and gently through her fur and she settled, closing her eyes and huffing delightedly.
When I glanced back to my phone, I saw another message come in from Bea's lawyer father. I only saw the words "payment plan" before I swiped the message away, sighing. I was going to keep pretending I didn't see his messages until he did something about it.
I remembered a conversation my coworkers had had the other day when I’d been working on an electrical panel in the garage. There were only two other mechanics I worked with and it was rare for all three of us to be in the shop at the same time. One of them, Jordan, would talk your ear off if you gave him a chance, and the other, Rob, tended to turn on the radio when it was just me and him. Together, they could talk for hours and they occasionally forgot that my workstation was only a few yards away from theirs and I could hear all of their conversations.
“Hey. How much money for you to suck someone’s dick?”
Rob let out a deep sigh.
“What the fuck, man, why are you always asking me this kind of shit right when I’m about to start something complicated? Now my choices are ‘Try to ignore Jordan and mess up my work’ or ‘Listen to Jordan and mess up my work regardless.’”
I heard Rob’s tool, probably a socket wrench, hit the table. I took a bite of the sandwich I’d brought as leftovers from my dinner the day before and chewed quietly.
“Naw, don’t be like that! Okay, so I was chatting this girl up the other day and I offer her a ride home. You know, ‘cus I’m a gentleman. Well she’s telling me on the drive she’s down on hard times, and she offers to give me the ‘ol sloppy toppy for twenty bucks. I’ve never paid, but twenty bucks? It just seemed like… not enough. I was kind of scared she might have something, so I told her I was good. She ended up changing her mind about going ‘home’ and asked me to drop her off downtown instead. The whole thing was beyond weird, but it got me thinking. Twenty is way too cheap, but what’s the real price? What’d you have to get paid? I know my number but I wanna hear yours.”
“Well, first of all I’ll have you know I’m a happily married man. Secondly, this is a stupid question. How much would I need to be paid? It depends on when you asked me. Right now, I’d probably say a cool million. But there was a time in my life I’d probably do it for as little as ohhh several hundred thousand. Right now, I’d probably say a million.”
They both laughed.
“But, seriously? Anyone who says they wouldn’t give head for money just hasn’t been needing cash bad enough. I don’t remember where I heard this but it’s still true: people operate from a place of scarcity. If they need something basic, like food, water, shelter, they’ll do anything. And all that stuff? Costs money. It’s just a matter of priorities.”
I didn’t chime into that conversation, and up until this moment I was sure that my attention had been firmly on my chicken teriyaki sandwich. I didn’t talk to the guys all that much; just didn’t have a lot I wanted to share with them. I tried to keep my personal life and my professional life separate. I was friendly to the guys, and to my boss, Dick, but there was a separation. I knew Rob was married with kids and Jordan wasn’t. They knew I had a girlfriend. I hadn’t told them I’d broken up with her yet. I hadn’t been single in years.
It’s just a matter of priorities.
My coworkers' words rattled in my head, bouncing off the walls of my skull. A foot picture was hardly whoring myself out online. Not what they were talking about at all, really. But Rob was right. To balk when I was desperate just seemed foolish.
Fuck. It was worth a shot right? I grabbed my phone before I could chicken out and typed out a message to the number on the ad.
Carl: Hey. I saw your ad on Craigslist. Are you really offering $100 for each photo?
I chewed on my lip after I had sent it, already feeling a little embarrassed. I was glad I was alone in the studio apartment, because I could feel my face starting to heat up. I went to continue my job search, not expecting a response for some time, but my phone chimed almost immediately with a reply.
(206) 555-4122: Depends. Why don't you send me one and I’ll tell you if I'm interested?
I paused, weighing my options. Did I really want to do this? I could still back out of this.
I looked down at Donut. She had finally settled down and seemed to be asleep, her little pissed off face still with rest.
I needed the money. I’d made it clear that I wasn't going to be returning Donut after all, and the only way to avoid a court case was going to be to buy her. Unfortunately as a grand champion show-cat, Donut cost more than I took home in a year. But when I was getting my stuff together to leave Bea, I hadn't been able to leave her there behind me. I packed up all my crap and I put Donut in her carrier and I took her with me. I didn't know what it was, but I just couldn't bear the thought of leaving Donut with Beatrice. Bea didn't even want to keep her. She was going to sell Donut as breeding stock. Or make Donut have a bunch of babies with one of her brother cousins or something. I wasn't sure when she planned on "retiring" Donut, but I knew that this year or the next was probably going to be her last round in the cat show circuit. She was a few years old already, and after winning some big title this year, I knew Bea, and more accurately Bea's parents, were anxious to get a litter of kittens out of her.
Donut… She would not have done well locked up with a bunch of other cats. She'd spent her whole life being the sole recipient of Bea's, and occasionally my, attention. Simply put, Donut was a princess. A needy, whiny, anxious little princess. She got upset about being alone and cried at the door when I didn’t let her sleep on my pillow at night. We had to leave the TV on for her whenever we left for work, or she'd work herself into a tizzy and start overgrooming herself. And Bea was going to put her in a cage. I’d seen them, at her parents house. I knew what was waiting for Donut.
So, I took her. And after I’d refused to return her, I’d signed a contract for her sale. In truth, I knew what the message he'd sent me earlier would have said. It was just a reiteration of what we'd already talked about. The payment plan was all sorted; I’d be paying her off for a long, long time, even after wiping out my savings. I was going to struggle to afford rent by myself in as little as two months, even if I only ate ramen, rice, and beans. It was the whole reason I was looking in the “Help Wanted” section in the first place. I’d started with Craigslist out of habit. I was thinking about looking up the subreddit for Seattle and seeing if that got me anything.
Selling pictures of my body or living homeless on the street? In the end, it was an easy choice. I’d spent one night in a homeless shelter in my life, and it was one night too many for me.
I sighed and gently shoo’d Donut off me. She grumbled loudly and tried to climb back on, but I stood up. I knew that I needed to do this fast, before I could talk myself out of it. I was already barefoot, wearing pajamas, and so there was nothing in my way as I put my foot up on the bedspread, got an angle, snapped a photo with my phone, and sent it off.
I immediately felt stupid.
(206) 555-4122: Hm. We’ll have to work on your framing, but I think this will do quite nicely. What's your venmo?
I blinked at the message. Was that seriously it? Hesitantly, I messaged the guy my venmo handle, @double-brow-carl. Sam had changed it to that a few months back as a joke, and I never got around to changing it back.
(206) 555-4122: Sent. There's more where that came from, Carl. You be good to me, and I'll be good to you. What do you say?
And just like that, I was a two hundred dollars richer. I stared at the amount in my venmo balance, not believing that it had actually worked. The payment had come from a user called @MWSystem-Daddy.
Carl: I thought I’d be getting one hundred, not two. You mean to send extra?
(206) 555-4122: I also said in my ad I’d send more if I like the look of ya. Call it a tip for the spicy pic.
Carl: And this is seriously all you want? Just pictures of my feet?
(206) 555-4122: Why, is there something more you'd like to offer?
Carl: No, I just don't understand why someone would pay $100 for a picture of some dude’s foot. Aren’t there like a million pictures online of people’s feet you could look at?
I didn't know why I was questioning this guy. I didn't want to piss him off and have him block me or something, but I couldn't help it.
(206) 555-4122: You’re pretty new to this huh?
I decided to ignore that question just like he ignored mine.
Carl: You know my name. What's yours?
(206) 555-4122: You can call me Daddy.
Carl: Yeah no, that's not happening. How about D?
(206) 555-4122: Hm. Impertinent little brat, aren't you? You can call me The AI. For now.
I bristled at the name calling. Who did this guy think he was? Well…he was the guy who had just sent me $200 for 3 seconds of work. I ground my teeth and decided to let it go as I turned my attention to the guy's weird name.
The…AI? Like, artificial intelligence? This wasn't some weird porn bot messaging me, was it? But no, usually those were trying to extract money, not the other way around. I got the feeling this was just some really weird dude. I also didn't like the addition of that “for now” at the end of his message, but I brushed the feeling aside. I saved his number, and in the Additional Notes section, I typed "wants to be called 'the AI.' Then I changed his named to Foot Guy.
Carl: That's a weird name, but alright. Would you want me to send you more pictures later?
Foot Guy: Yes, if you’re busy now, then later will do. I’ll send you some instructions, since you’re a beginner at this ;)
I didn't reply back. The whole exchange left me feeling uneasy, but I couldn't argue with the results. If this dude was really willing to pay this much money for just some pictures of my feet, I was willing to play along.
The next message came, as promised, later that day. I’d spent the day searching for various part time jobs and hanging out with Donut. It was one of my rare days off and, although I appreciated Foot Guy’s money, I wasn’t going to just rest on my laurels.
In the grand scheme of things, two hundred dollars really wasn’t that much money. One of the crappy little studios I had been looking at when I’d been contemplating the move had been a “one bedroom, half bath” that only had a minifridge and a sink, all five feet away from a small camping cot. That “studio” had cost $1000. They didn’t allow cats.
The apartment I had moved into wasn’t nice, necessarily, but it had a full sized refrigerator. And apartments with full sized refrigerators weren’t cheap.
I spent a few hours answering local ads asking for labor, for help moving and lifting things. I only had two actual takers, one man and one woman. The man just wanted my help installing a pellet stove. He was an older guy, but he knew exactly where he wanted it and how to hook it up. Just needed a “strong pair of hands.” He gave me forty bucks in cash and a home-brewed growler of beer. The woman wanted me to shovel her parents' driveway. She lived across the country and sent me $65 on venmo when I sent her pictures of the cleared walkways. It took me two and a half hours.
By the time I got home, I was another one hundred and five dollars richer and much sorer for it, though the home-made beer raised my spirits. Donut glanced up from where she lay in her cat tree, overlooking the sliding glass door out to the patio. Snow still blanketed the outside world from the huge storm a week ago. The TV, which was still playing that channel with all the old show re-runs, was playing the A-Team.
“Mrow,” she said.
“Hi Donut,” I said back to her. I took my coat off and settled onto the floor in front of the TV, patting my lap. Donut stood up and stretched, before leisurely hopping from platform to platform on her tree until she was at the very bottom. She moseyed over to me as if she was going to walk right past me. I stuck a hand out to her and she practically fell on it, she pushed so hard into it. “I can see you’ve been hard at work here, holding down the fort.” She meowed again, climbing into my lap, and started purring up a storm. I ran a hand through her fur, sighing. My phone buzzed.
Foot Guy: Hi, Carl. Are you busy?
I paused, thinking about how to respond. Donut flopped to her side in my lap and I began to slowly run a hand over her as I thought. He couldn't seriously want another picture already, right? I just sent him a picture yesterday - $100 a picture, and one picture every day was a pricey porn addiction.
Especially when the porn is actually just pictures of some dudes feet, I thought. I wondered how much I could get out of him before he either balked at the prices or asked me for something I wasn't willing to give.
I hadn't really thought this would be an issue, though. I had sort of figured I'd hear from him again sometime next week or something. After his bank account had recovered a little. And, let's be realistic here: how many pictures of the same man's feet could the guy possibly need?
I typed out a response.
Carl: Nope, not really. Did you want another picture?
Foot Guy: In a sense. I want you to send me a few more angles of your feet. From the top, from the sides, from behind, and the soles of your feet. Go to the room with the best lighting in your house and make sure they're well-lit. When you're done with that, send me your banking details.
Oh, here it is. The only times I had ever heard of anyone asking for banking details was when someone was about to get scammed. I knew this arrangement was too good to be true. That was how con artists like this guy worked - they ask for your banking details and when they send you the money, they claim they sent too much, and have you send some back. Then, they disappear with your money while their first transaction bounces. The money they "sent" the mark would then disappear, and the con artist would get away clean with the cash.
Or maybe he would use the banking numbers to send fake checks or something. I didn't know.
I sighed. Donut meowed in my lap and pulled one of my hands to her face. I rubbed my thumb against the short fur on her face and she turned her face, headbutting my hand. I stroked along her back and sighed again, feeling truly disappointed. I decided, bitterly, to play along.
Carl: Why not keep using venmo?
Foot Guy: Venmo is good for small amounts, like $100, but it has a weekly limit that doesn't go over $999. More to the point, however, I plan on sending you a lot of money over the next few weeks and believe it or not, the IRS doesn't take too kindly to those kinds of regular, large deposits. There's only two jobs out there that get paid like that and neither of them are exactly legal.
Foot Guy: I obviously don't want you to get in any legal trouble. I want this to be beneficial to both of us. Just send me the details. Send me the pictures. I'll send you the money.
He sent me a number of links after that. I didn’t click any of them, in case they were viruses or something. I wasn’t sure how any of that worked. Some of them looked like they were links to forums or blogs. One was clearly a YouTube link to a video titled “Taxes for Sex Workers - An Introduction.”
My stomach churned. I had known exactly what this was when I had messaged him, but I hadn’t really thought about it until I saw those words. Sex worker. That's what I was now.
Carl: That's…a lot.
Foot Guy: It is. Consider it your first quest. Complete it for me and you'll get a reward. <3
Quest? Alright, I already knew Foot Guy was a nerd. My certainty that this guy was just a scammer waned slightly. A scammer wouldn’t say something like that. I shook my head to dismiss the thought. It didn’t mean anything.
Carl: Listen, I’m not going to send you my banking details. There’s all sorts of shit you could do to me with that. I could go open up a new account, though. I don’t see how you can scam me out of money if the account is brand new and empty. I can get that done tomorrow when the bank opens in the morning.
Foot Guy: Reasonable enough. Talk to me then.
What, that was it? He wasn’t going to try harder to convince me to do it now, that he needed my banking account number, not some new account I’d be opening? What was this guy’s angle? Was he seriously just that into my feet?
I tried to think of something that would pull him back, but couldn’t go through with it. Anything I might say now would just make me look desperate. I’m the one with the power here, I reminded myself. I have a product, and he is buying it. Supply and demand. The supplier has all the control, if there’s a demand.
And there was, apparently, a demand. I had no idea Venmo had a spending limit. Who would need to know that? Me, I guessed. Now.
I settled in and started opening up the links he sent me.
The next day, I got the new banking and routing numbers.
I opened a new account in the bank I was already with, so I could have it linked to my account but still protect my information. I followed the directions I had found on all the various websites I had visited the night before.
I struggled with the pictures - mostly in finding the “best lighting in my house.” I eventually decided it had to be in the front room where my TV was, next to the sliding glass door out to the porch area. With the blinds pulled all the way open, the front room was lit up with sunlight.
I waited until the light was bright and took the pictures. It was only after I had sent them, along with the banking info, that I realized half of them had Donut’s scrunched up face prominently featured in the background. She stared at the camera, as though appalled at what I was doing.
I looked up to see her stretched out in a patch of sunlight, not a care in the world. She turned that baleful gaze my way. She meowed, and her tail swished lazily up in the air as if to say “Yeah, and what about it?”
“This is your fault, you know." The cat tilted her head at me and I reached down to pet her. She was warm under my hand. "If you weren't such an expensive little shit, I wouldn't have to be doing this."
My phone vibrated again with a new message and I resolved to be better about checking the pictures before I sent them. I was lucky it was just Donut and not a bill or something with my full mailing address. That would be my doomsday scenario.
Foot Guy: Not bad. The sunlight is nice, though the dramatic lighting creates shadows on the other side of your feet, making them difficult to see in their entirety, which was the whole point of the photoshoot. It’d have been better if you had even lighting all around. Maybe if you were outside, getting the sun directly. We'll have to work on your framing.
Foot Guy: Who’s this cutie?
He sent me a screenshot a moment later - it was one of my pictures, zoomed in on Donut’s face where she was glaring in the background of the photograph. She was looking directly into the camera in this one, looking affronted, as was her usual. I sighed, giving her an annoyed glance. The cat, being a cat, just swished her tail at my glance down at her.
Truthfully, I knew this was my own damn fault. Without Bea to follow from room to room, Donut was spending all of her time with me. She followed me constantly, always trying to get involved in whatever I was doing.
I read an article on why cats follow people around and how they “mirror” their humans doing things - it was their way of hanging out with you. Donut’s company was usually welcome - the only time Bea and I ever kicked her out of the bedroom was when we were trying to have sex. Donut would wail outside the door for a few minutes before giving in and wandering off only to come back a little while later to try again.
I should have checked that she wasn’t in the view of the camera. She followed me into every room.
When I had been doing my weird yoga poses and trying to get a good angle, Donut had circled around me, meowing occasionally and rubbing against my legs. I’d reached down to give her a friendly pat more than once while I’d been taking the pictures.
Carl: Sorry about her. That’s my cat, Donut. I can redo those pictures, if you want. I didn’t realize she was there.
Foot Guy: No need.
A notification from my banking app chimed as the money was sent to my new account. I breathed a sigh of relief. A moment later, a new text lit up my phone.
Foot Guy: Did you like your reward?
Oh no, was he going to be weird about this? Still, he was the one paying. I checked the amount and nearly choked.
What the fuck? I sent him six pictures. He sent me a thousand dollars.
Carl: Yeah, I did. Thanks.
I hesitated. What does someone even say here? Thank you for giving me an insane amount of money. Please keep doing it?
I remembered the videos. Sex worker.
Carl: Pleasure doing business with you. Text me anytime you have a request.
I deliberated on whether or not I should send a winky face at the end of the message, probably for too long, before finally deciding that that just wasn’t me and sent the message off.
I didn’t want to come off like I was trying too hard. The forums I’d visited had told me not to pursue my clients too aggressively. I wasn’t sure if that applied when you only had one client, though.
Foot Guy: I will. Goodnight Carl <3
I sat on the floor, tossing my phone away, and stretched out next to where Donut was sunbathing, laying on my back. She hopped up ten seconds later, considering me carefully, and stepped directly onto my bladder as she climbed up onto me.
The cat settled onto my legs, sprawling into my lap, purring loudly as she dug her claws into me and started kneading my stomach. I dragged my fingers gently through her long fur and scratched under her collar.
I smiled down at her, stretching out on the fake wood flooring of my barren apartment. The sunlight I had been using in my photo shoot was nice to lay in, though it didn’t exactly warm me, what with it being the third week of January.
What did warm me was knowing I would be able to pay rent on Februrary 1st. Already I could feel some of the tension leaking out of my body.
That large amount of money being sent was still pretty scammy, and especially since it was more than we’d discussed, but still. There was something nice about seeing your bank balance suddenly go from three digits up to four.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to go into town and get some furniture,” I told her. She meowed back at me and I grinned. I loved our conversations. “And after that, I’m going to see about getting you some proper cat beds. Sound good, Donut?”
“Meow,” she replied. I gave her a good scratch under her collar. She purred.