Without Remorse

Plenty of guys paid for the privilege of watching her go about her regular life—while she was naked. She had cameras set up all over the house. Well, not upstairs, but she never went up there anyway, so that didn’t really count.

But even though she was still officially on-cam, she was good about forgetting the voyeur feed and going about her life as she normally would.

So as far as she was concerned, Oliver hanging up before his session was done meant happy hour had come early. Sure she had a shower show scheduled later and maybe a couple of privates, but those were cake.

She poured herself a glass of wine and grabbed her phone. Tipping her glass back, she took a deep swallow and switched on her end of day playlist. It started with Kesha’s Woman. Oh yeah.

“Wanna come dance, roomie?” she asked, going to open the door between the kitchen and the living room—it was an old house, each space very segmented—and opening it.

She was met by excited meowing as Ramona scampered into the room. Ramona was an anomaly when it came to cats, as far as Sloane understood. Ramona loved being underfoot wherever people were—well, at least wherever Sloane was. There never were any other people around to see if it was people in general her kitty loved, or just Sloane.

Sloane loved her gray short-haired bestie back, more than anyone else in the world.

Sloane scooped Ramona up. “You gonna rock out to some Kesha with me?” Sloane asked, grabbing Ramona’s little kitty paw and swinging with her around the kitchen.

Mona just nuzzled her face into Sloane’s neck and tried to crawl up onto her shoulders. Sloane giggled and continued dancing, balancing her kitty as Mona used her as a climbing gym, meowing loudly in her ear while her tail curled around Sloane’s neck. It tickled and Sloane shrieked, lifting Mona and putting her back on the floor.

“Okay, okay, I get it. Dinner first, dancing after.”

Ramona meowed and nudged at Sloane’s legs.

“Don’t tell me,” Sloane rolled her eyes. “The only thing you heard in that sentence was dinner.”

Ramona crawled between her legs in a figure-eight pattern, continuously meowing.

“Fine, fine. God, I’m such a pushover.” Going to the cabinet, she pulled out a can of Fancy Feast. Ramona made excited cat noises that got louder and louder as Sloane opened the can and upended it on a plate.

“Must be nice to be so single-focused,” Sloane said wryly. She held the bowl of food in the air over Ramona’s head. “Sit. Sit.”

Ramona’s tail swished furiously and she dug her nose into Sloane’s shins again.

“Sit, Ramona. Show Mama what a good girl you can be. Sit.”

Ramona’s tail flicked back and forth for another few seconds.

“Good enough,” Sloane laughed, setting the bowl down on the little mat where Ramona immediately dug in.

“What I think you mean to say is, thank you, Mom.”

Sloane shook her head at her but couldn’t help the ridiculous smile on her face. She’d never been allowed any pets growing up. Her mom thought she was too nervous to have them, but Dr. Noah thought a pet would be a good idea. He was right, getting Mona had been the best idea ever.

Did Sloane spoil her cat and buy her tiny little best-roommate-in-the-world sweaters in addition to ridiculously expensive food, cat toys, and treats?

Yes, yes she did.

Was it ludicrous to give a cat an entire room of the house for her own?

Yes, probably, it was.

Did Sloane give a shit about what anybody thought? No. It also helped there was no one else around to judge her.

Besides, it was more like Sloane had converted the den into Ramona’s room, and if you thought about it, the den was the domain of most pets. So what if she’d entirely redesigned her house space around her pet? The den was an exciting vista of climbing spaces and enough toys to delight any cat for hours at a time.

Normal people did that.

Right?

Sloane took another deep drink of wine. Who was she kidding? She’d abandoned normal a looooooooong time ago.

And fuck it, her life was great. Just as it was. Fabulous, even.

She was living the dream.

She was her own boss. Sure she lived on a budget, but really, she had everything she could ever want. With all the apps and services out there now, she could have almost anything she wanted at the tip of her fingertips within two delivery days.

She kept in shape, ate three square meals a day, and ran a successful small business. Most days, her job was even kinda fun. And if she wasn’t feelin’ it on a particular day, screw it, she just didn’t login. No harm no foul.

She was living the damn dream.

She restarted the Kesha song.

“I’m a motherfuckin’ woman,” she sang along at the top of her lungs, bouncing on her feet as she finished washing her dishes. She slapped the last cup down into the drying rack and then spun on her toes.