Tilly receives an offer

Tilly made it home and changed back into her own clothes. She started a load of laundry so she'd be able to return Sam's clothing already clean. She was pretty tired from all her walking and really, really wanted a nap. She looked longingly at her bed. It would be lazy to nap, right?

She decided to ask, "Master may I take a nap?"

She was shocked when the reply came, "Yes. You have 90 minutes."

Tilly actually thanked the app, that's how surprised she was, "Thank you Master." She climbed into bed and quickly fell asleep.

When she woke up later she realized it had been exactly 90 minutes. The app must have somehow prevented her from sleeping longer, but she appreciated that it didn't use an alarm to wake her loudly. She climbed out of bed and rubbed her eyes, she actually felt a lot better now. Her day had been rather stressful so far, she really need that.

She pulled out her phone and stared at it. She'd already blown her chances at two of her daily quests, she had to at least set her own goal. She couldn't afford to let the app do it for her. She tried to think...that's it. She'd loved the food Sam had made, maybe she could learn to cook.

• Learn how to cook.

The app buzzed angrily.

Goal Rejected

What? That's a great goal! Tilly thought. "Master why was my goal rejected?"

"You can already cook as well as you want to. That goal did not come from your heart, but only from a desire to finish the quest easily. " It said.

Argh. Tilly groaned. That wasn't helpful. She just wanted to get this over with.

"Don't be lazy." Taskmaster reminded her.

"Fine! Let me think." She said. She tried to think about her life. What was missing? What did she actually want? For all the bad things the app had done to her, she really was in a better place now. She'd been unemployed, broke, on the verge of being homeless, no friends, no prospects, oh, and she'd been fat and depressed too. She was still unemployed, but she wasn't in danger of eviction any more. She also had a best friend, and she felt like it was possible now for her to make more. She wasn't fat or depressed anymore. She was hot, and if she was honest with herself, she was happy.

She did still have regrets though. It went back to her job prospects. She had little job prospects because she didn't have marketable skills. She'd been fired from her minimum wage jobs because she never took them seriously. She wasn't happy and couldn't bring herself to put effort in. Getting any job wasn't enough. She wanted the right job. She thought she'd done the right thing. After high school she'd gone to University. Finished a degree in psychology. It had been interesting to her, she'd enjoyed it. Yet so did hundreds of thousands of other people her age. For all her job prospects the degree wasn't worth the paper it was printed on.

At one point she'd had a dream of becoming a psychologist...but could she really go back to school? If she put that down as a goal, she'd be stuck. How would she ever get into a doctoral program? It's not like they wanted average students who'd taken a few years off to do absolutely nothing. She sighed. Now that she'd started thinking about it she knew Taskmaster knew too. Given it's track record she was afraid that putting down anything else would cause her to fail her quest.

She hesitated. She bit her lip. Ok. She typed it in.

Get admitted to a PhD program in clinical psychology

Goal Accepted

Quest #3 Complete

Reward: [Hidden]

Hidden? "Master what does that mean?"

"Your reward is hidden to prevent it from interfering with your growth."

Tilly fought the urge to roll her eyes, what a non-answer. "I see." She said.

Well that was at least 1/3 quests done. She checked the time, there was still enough time in the day to run out to a different sex store and buy something else. She didn't know what to do about the job, so she decided to skip it for now. She went to the bathroom and made sure she was presentable after her nap, touching up her makeup, fixing her hair. Then she grabbed her purse and went to leave.

She hadn't made it out the door yet when her phone buzzed. Unknown number.

Hey this is Emi, from Lace Me Up. I just wanted to thank you. If you hadn't acted so quickly I would be a lot worse off. I'm going to be alright, broken leg is the worst of it.

Tilly replied right away.

I'm glad to hear you are ok. Are you in hospital, or did you get discharged?

Emi replied, Still in the hospital. They had to do surgery on my leg so I'm stuck here overnight. The worst thing now is the boredom.

Tilly thought for a moment, then replied, I could come visit you if you wanted.

She didn't know why she'd offered. Emi was a stranger. She would probably feel weird that Tilly even said that. She slapped her forehead, what a bonehead.

To her surprise Emi's response was immediate, I'd love that. I'm at the General, Room 1124. Come anytime.

Tilly was already ready to head out. She checked her phone. If she had a quick visit with Emi she would still have a little bit of time to do her other goals. Not a lot though. The better choice was probably to ignore Emi and accomplish her own goals. After all was it worth risking a punishment for someone she doesn't even know? Well, not a true punishment. The app said it would basically **** compliance. She tapped her foot as she thought. No, screw the quests. Emi is a living, breathing human. Not some senseless magic app. Let it **** her to comply all it wants, she was going to see Emi.

It took Tilly about 30 minutes to walk to the General Hospital, and another 10 to find Emi's room. Emi saw her right away and sat up and smiled at her. Tilly hadn't really paid much attention to her appearance when they'd first met, but now the thought came unbidden into her mind, she's gorgeous.

Tilly smiled back, "Hi. How are you feeling?"

"Not too bad. They said the officer lifted that box off before it could do more permanent damage. I'll be in this cast for months unfortunately, but they said I can go home tomorrow. They just want to keep me for observation after the surgery," She looked down at her hands for a moment and blushed, "Tilly...I don't know that I could have done what you did. I mean, I could tell you were shy about that outfit but you didn't hesitate at all. You prioritized helping me over your own comfort. I just want to say thank you again, from the bottom of my heart."

Now it was Tilly's turn to blush, "You're welcome. I'm sure you would have done the same. It really was nothing. I just dialed 911, nothing special at all."

"Don't be so modest. Take the compliment."

Tilly smiled, "Ok. I will," She noticed a chair beside the bed and sat down, "So what are you going to do now? Will you still be able to keep your job with a broken leg?"

Emi frowned, "I don't know. The owner is kind of a bitch sometimes. A real **** driver. She might just **** me to work despite my condition. And it was her fault the stockroom was so messy in the first place"

"Oh, I'm sorry to hear that," Tilly said seriously. "Maybe you can get workers comp or something?" She suggested.

Emi burst out laughing, "Ya that's what happens when you own your own business. Nobody to blame for the accident except myself and I can't exactly take the time off to recover either."

"Wait..." Tilly was a little slow on the uptake. Emi owned it? But she was so young?

"Yep. Emi Tanaka, proud owner of Lace Me Up. Nice to meet you." Emi sighed, "Argh. I'm going to have to hire someone to help. There's just no way I'll be able to do it all by myself. Not that I can really afford it. It takes a lot of dildos to pay for a hospital stay after all."

Tilly found herself putting her hand over Emi's, "I'm sure it'll work out. The jacket you talked me into is worth quite a few dildos," She added with a smirk, "You are quite the saleslady."

Emi grinned, "So I was right! The moment I saw you look at the jacket I knew you were going to buy it. Oh, I suppose you didn't though. I can let you know once I finally get the store reopened, I can't afford to just give it to you but I'll sell it to you at cost."

"I appreciate it but don't worry about me. Honestly I shouldn't even be buying it, it was way above my budget to begin with." Tilly said.

Emi looked at Tilly seriously for a moment, "Tilly...what do you do? For a living?"

Tilly opened her mouth to reply, then closed it. She could say app tester, which was sort of true, but also not really. She sighed, "I'm unemployed actually. I've been doing odd jobs." She didn't want to mention the app, what if it somehow got it's claws into someone else after all.

"I have the most wonderful, amazing idea!" Emi said with a grin, "You're hired!"

"Huh?" Tilly said.

"You're hired. You can work at my shop while I recover. I can't pay you more than minimum wage, but I can offer you a staff discount. What do you say? Are you interested?"

"I...uh..." Tilly hadn't come here for a job. She almost felt like she was taking advantage of Emi, "I just came here to check on you, I wasn't trying to get anything out of it." She said finally.

"I know. You're a good person Tilly. This isn't charity. This is an offer for a mutually beneficial arrangement. I need to hire someone. If you say no then I'll make a job add, interviews, eventually I'll pick someone and reopen my shop. If you accept it saves me all that. You say your unemployed and surviving on odd jobs, I'm offering some stability. For a few months at least. Win-win. So, what do you say? Want to run a sex shop?"