The Toy

I was sitting in one of the comfy chairs outside the cafeteria at college, trying to work out whether I could afford to get anything for lunch… or, rather, trying to work out whether I was going to ignore the fact that I definitely couldn’t and just get something anyway. 

I was also worrying about the letter which was sitting in the middle of the tiny desk, back in my room in the student hostel, which was basically telling me that, unless I paid up my arrears by the end of day today, they were going to chuck me out.

It was a lot to think about and so it took me a long time to notice that there was a girl walking straight towards me. Except that, when she got closer, I could see that she was not, in fact, a girl. She was definitely a young lady.

“Hello,” she said with a warm smile. “My name is Julia. Please may I join you?”

“Sure,” I replied. The annoying good girl inside me made me stay halfway polite but I didn’t quite manage to swallow a sigh. “I’m Susan.”

She gave a bit of a nod as if she already knew that and then sat down in the chair opposite me… or, better said, she took a seat. There was something strikingly graceful and elegant about the way she moved.

We chatted for a bit… just normal college stuff… but then she must have worked out what it was that was worrying me. 

Or, looking back, I bet she already knew.

“Money problems?” she asked. 

I did this embarrassing snorty type laugh thing. “You can say that again!”

“I might be able to help you there, Susan,” she said. “But, first, let me buy you lunch.”

I hesitated… but only for a moment. “You sure?” I asked.

She gave a little laugh that basically told me that money problems were something that only happened to other people. Then she held out a hand to help me to my feet and basically dragged me into the cafeteria.

Not that I was trying overly hard to resist!

We didn’t chat much in the queue… I was too busy trying to work out what I could get away with ordering. In the end, I went for a solid-looking pasta bake that I thought would keep me going for the rest of the day. 

But Julia must have worked out what was going on in my head. With another one of her little laughs, she popped a side salad and a slice of delicious looking fruit tart onto each of our trays… I must admit that I’d been looking at them… but only looking, honest! She also added a couple of coffee cups. You filled them up at a machine after the cash register.

Of course, when she saw my reaction, she smiled again. “Relax!” she told me. “I can comfortably afford this sort of thing and, what’s more, there’s an opportunity I want to tell you about which would mean you’d be able to afford them too.

I gave her an astonished look. 

“Let’s eat first,” she suggested, “then I can let you know all about it.”

We found a little table over by the window and, for a couple of minutes, I have to admit that I wasn’t a particularly gracious guest as I concentrated on stuffing pasta bake into my face. When I came up for air, Julia was smiling at me. 

“Oh! I’m sorry!”

“That’s quite alright, Susan,” she replied with another one of her little laughs. She seems to do that a lot… they felt a bit like she was teasing but, somehow, they managed to put me at my ease. “I could see you were hungry!”

As we ate that delicious fruit tart, she gently quizzed me about my life at uni: my lectures and tutorials; sports and activities… nothing much to say there; and social life… if possible, even less to report. I must have been starting to trust her a bit because I found myself admitting that I couldn’t afford anything like that and that I didn’t really have any friends.

When every crumb was gone, we sat back and turned our attention to the coffee. “So, Susan… would you like me to tell you something about this opportunity?” Julia asked.

“Yes please,” I replied, taking a sip of my cappuccino.

“I’m here as a representative of something that’s just called ‘The Club’,” she explained. “It’s an organisation for wealthy gentlemen who appreciate the sight of pretty young girls being presented as what they describe as ‘Living Art Installations’ ”

“But I’m not really all that pretty… I mean… not like you.”

“In this context, what you think really doesn’t matter,” she said with a slight smile. “I am confident that the club committee will agree that you are suitably pretty or I wouldn’t have wasted our time by talking to you, would I?”

I don’t suppose I could really argue with that.

“The safety of us girls is, of course, paramount. So, in the basic package I’m proposing for you, you would be presented in what essentially amounts to a three dimensional picture frame… something like a glass box. I’ve been put on display like that a couple of times… all us recruiters have… and I thoroughly enjoyed the experience.”

It all sounded a bit freaky but who knows what kind of weird stuff rich guys are into… and if they’re willing to pay to stick me in a picture frame and look at me, I guess I could live with that… I could definitely use the money!

“The basic contract involves about four hours of our time every day for a week,” Julia explained, “and the club makes sure that our studies are not disrupted.”

“It sounds really well organised.”

“The Club has been doing this for years and they want us all to be happy with the arrangements.”

She let me have a couple of seconds and then asked, “So… are you interested in what you’ve heard so far, Susan?”

I thought about it for a bit but it wasn’t like I had a whole lot of choice. I had to do something about the stupid money thing… even if the whole ‘Living Art Installation’ idea sounded a bit weird! So I gave a sigh and said, “Yeah. I guess I am, really.”

“OK, then there are a couple of points. Firstly, as you can probably guess, privacy is pretty important in this sort of thing. The members of The Club really do not want to see their names in the newspapers and, if you decide to go ahead with this, I can’t imagine you would want other people to know about it either.”

I had to think about that too but then nodded. I’d not really thought about it but I suppose it made sense.

“And, as a result, the application procedure is quite unusual. Basically, it’s performed online and they use their own application that they download onto your computer.”

Julia must have recognised the panicky look of a true technophobe flashing across my eyes and laughed.

“All you have to do is type in a web address and then it will happen as if by magic. The whole thing should take about an hour… but you do have to make sure you’re on your own in the room when you do it. They’re really fussy about that sort of thing and the application will be checking..”

I nodded. That made sense, I suppose.

“Then we can get onto the fun bit, money! There is a small payment for completing the application procedure… which you’ll be allowed to keep whether you decide to go ahead or not.” 

But, when she told me how much it was, my mouth fell open. She might think it was a small payment but I certainly didn’t. It would go a long way towards solving my money problems for the next couple of weeks!

“I can’t tell you how much you’d be offered if everybody decides to go ahead with the contract… everything like that is handled by the app… but they are really generous.”

I nodded dumbly.

“So… do you have any questions, Susan?”

“Not really.” To be honest, I was feeling pretty stunned.

“And would you like to go ahead with the application?”

I nodded again. I couldn’t quite manage words.

“In that case…” she took an envelope out of her bag and pushed it across the table towards me but she kept her hand on it. “This is the application package. There’s a card in there which tells you how to get onto our app. The money is in there too but don’t spend it until you’ve completed your application procedure because, if you change your mind, they’re going to want it back.”

“OK.”

“And, Susan…” She paused for a moment to sort of force me to look her in the eye. “I really mean it about not spending the money until you’ve completed the application procedure.”

“Oh! OK… thanks.”

With that, she let go of the envelope so I could stick it in my bag.

“Then I’ll go and deal with these,” she said, stacking our dirty crockery together, “If you think of any more questions, you can ask them through the app. Meanwhile, you need to get moving if you’re not going to be late for your lecture.”