Sadie came back to her dorm room but paused in the doorway. Her unofficial roommate Felicity was doing something weird.

Reading a newspaper.

The mouse girl came and sat down on the bed next to the truant sphinx oracle.

"Can you even read that? With the hair in the way?" Sadie asked curiously.

"Yes." The sphinx didn't elaborate. Such a terse sphinx.

"Mm, okay." Sadie peered at the paper. "Felicity, why are you reading the classifieds?"

"Miss Sadie, you've done so much for me during my stay with you. You've given me a place to stay. You've fed me. You've given me... interesting outfits to wear. And time and again you've helped me experience parts of life I never knew."

Sadie scoffed. "This again? I told you not to worry about it. I like having you around! It's fun!"

"Still. I wish to show my gratitude in some way."

"By getting a job?" Sadie raised an eyebrow. "Well, there's two problems there."

"Problems?" Felicity repeated.

"So... when you left the mountain did you bring... a birth certificate or any piece of paper saying you exist? Social security number, maybe? Most jobs won't give you a first look unless you have a bunch of paperwork that I'm pretty sure you don't."

"Why... would I need a paper saying I exist? Won't employers be able to see me standing in front of them?"

Sadie put a hand on Felicity's shoulder. "Aw, baby, no. It'd be nice if life made sense like that."

"Hmm. What is the second problem?"

"You're looking at the university paper. All the job postings are for jobs on campus. And even if you had a note saying you're a real girl, they only hire enrolled students. Which you are not."

Felicity folded the paper up and placed it down. "Hrm. I was born into mine so I never realized how difficult it was to get a job in this world."

"And I won't even explain overly invasive job applications that try to psychoanalyze you. Because I don't want to scare you."

"Hm. This is a disappointment. How else can I convey my gratitude if I can't get a job to get currency to engage in commerce?"

"Oh, I can think of other ways you can thank me!" Sadie joked, waggling her eyebrows. When Felicity didn't catch the innuendo, Sadie continued more seriously. "Again: not necessary to pay me back. But maybe I should look at this as another new experience for you! There's places that pay under the table (that means without needing a lot of paperwork). But what are you skills? Aside from being a strange and exotic mountain person."

"Hm. I really only have experience as an Oracle. And I can't do that very well away from the mountain."

"Okay. Phone psychic probably not the answer we're looking for then. What else do you do?"

"Trap maintenance."

"I don't think that's a real job." Sadie checked on her phone. "And I was wrong. A lot of security companies need people that reset traps. Mostly security systems for the eccentric rich. Hm. Definitely a job that requires paperwork though. What else do you do?"

Felicity considered. "Mostly freeload."

"So you'd be great at the jobs that hire college students. I bet you could do retail! Wait, I don't want to inflict retail on you... Sure, you'll go into it thinking its a great new experience but you'll end up dead inside, like a Mach-O-Mart clerk." Sadie stood up and paced around the small room, in thought. "I'm gonna need some time on this. I'll reach out to some people that know people."

--

"Now, usually, you shouldn't respond to ads asking for exotic girls," Sadie warned Felicity.

"Noted," Felicity said quietly.

"But I checked and it's not stripping. Or trafficking."

"Why would a traffic cop need to be an exotic girl?"

"Oof. I don't want to unpack that for you. Anyway, this job is sleazy but its a job and they don't care if you don't legally exist as long as you're hot. Which you are."

"Oh. And what sort of job is that?"

"Commercial modeling!"

A pig with a camera walked up. "That's right, commercial modeling, babe! We gotta new product called Exotic Milk and we're gonna put exotic ladies with good boobs on the carton. Sex sells! We're hoping to attract a whole new adult milk drinking demographic! We want consumers to look at our milk cartons and get horny for milk so they'll buy more milk! 'Milk builds strong boners!' is what the cartons will say! Billion dollar idea!"

Felicity looked at Sadie. The mouse broke it down to the basics for her freeloading friend.

"All you need to do is wear whatever horny-for-milk costume Peter here provides and pose like he directs while he takes pictures. Its going to be several hours under hot lights in a stinky barn but at the end of it, he's going to give you an envelope of money for your time. If you get picked to be the face of... Exotic Milk, there'll be residuals or whatever. But let's not get ahead of ourselves. There's tough competition for this job. He was snapping a dragon yesterday."

"Very good lady," Peter the porcine photographer said, nodding. "Very good, very tall. Boobs bigger than watermelons."

"Oo, wish I'd been here to see that." Sadie whistled. Then she turned back to Felicity. "Yeah, end of the day, I'll take a cut of your envelope money as your agent. And you'll have paid me back and got to experience being objectified for pay."

"You can take the whole envelope," Felicity said.

"Hey, whoa, no. An agent gets a percentage. That's agent rules. Right, Peter?"

"Agent rules," he agreed, not paying a lot of attention as he browsed through a rack of outfits.

"Fifty?" asked Felicity. "That's a percent."

"... Usually it's ten to twenty. But since we're such good friends, yes, I will take half the money you earn."

"Thank you, Miss Sadie."

"OKAY!" Peter said. "Put this on!"

It was a cow-patterned bikini. And cow-patterned stockings. And a cowbell on a collar. And horns on a headband.

"Honestly, seeing you dressed in that? That's the real reward for my kindness to you," Sadie said seriously.

"You are still taking half of the envelope money," Felicity insisted.

--

What followed was a long photo shoot in a stinky barn. Felicity wasn't sure why putting a picture of a lady in a bikini on the package would sell milk. She wasn't sure why one of the poses she was asked to make was holding up her fingers like horns by her head when she was already wearing fake horns. She really didn't understand any of this.

But she finally felt like she was doing something to thank Sadie for her kindness. So she was content with her first experience with employment..

--

Much, much later, Sadie, Sable, and Alyson visited the Mach-O-Mart to get snacks for a movie night.

Alyson went by the refrigerated section to get cold drinks, Sable and Sadie examined the chips situation, and Saul the sullen possum clerk didn't react to them being in the store.

"What the heck!" Alyson exclaimed. "Is that Felicity!"

She pulled a milk carton out of the fridge to show her two mouse friends.

"Ew!" Sable wrinkled her nose. "Exotic Milk? What makes it exotic? Do I want to know what makes it exotic?"

Sadie snatched the milk carton and started laughing so hard that her sides hurt.

"Oh, this is priceless! If I were keeping a ledger for her, this would have paid it off in full! SPOKESPHINX FOR EXOTIC MILK!"

Sadie tore the carton open and took a sip. She then spit the sip out into the trash.

"Euch! I really hope sex does sell because this stuff tastes like... if milk could get freezer burn!"

Alyson fretted, because she hadn't been brought up to open food in the store. "Sadie!"

"Relax," the mouse soothed her friend. "I'm going to pay for it! I'm going to dump it right out but I'm definitely saving the carton. Maybe I'll even have it framed. This is the greatest thing! Fricking oracle of the whole mountain in a cowkini hawking gross milk! I'm delighted! As an agent, I'm very proud of my client!"

"God. It even smells bad," Sable said. Her nose was already wrinkled so her face scrunched up trying to get away from the scent. "It's not sour but its definitely a smell milk shouldn't have! I can't stand walking home in a cloud of that funk. Please pour it out before we leave!"

Sadie went to dump out the carton into the bathroom sink.

Just another late shift at the Mach-O-Mart, thought Saul as the milk funk lingered long after the three co-eds had paid for the empty carton and left.

---

Felicity the Oracle owned by me
Art by  kastoluza