All the paperwork took a week to process, and they celebrated new year’s eve at the studio. Most models were under twenty-one so the party didn’t serve any alcohol (to avoid any rumors to an already stigmatized business) but they didn’t care. The girls celebrated a new year and got “drunk” on grape juice all the same.
The reason for the delay was the need to get all the trademarks and permits ready to start Cat’s new life as a camgirl without leaving any hidden pitfalls to cause trouble later. She decided to go for broke and register at all six websites at once along with the stream split service, which cost only fifteen dollars a month. Even the lowest-rung models could get that much from a single site in a month so she considered the split service like leverage when trading stocks, without the risk of a margin call. It was a win-win-win, in her book.
However, she shrewdly negotiated with those websites, using her internet celebrity status to negotiate a better deal, dangling the threat of cutting them off and using only the competition. These websites agreed to give her better conditions (some of them even had provisions for celebrity streamers, most of them pornstars branching off) so long she could bring in the highly sought-after token tips from the users.
The day she signed the contract with PixCamStudios and heard Dione say the words, “You’re Hired”, Cat cried as if she’d won a reality show with an orange-faced politician for a host. Her screen name and trademarks were registered in her name, the full contract was very accomodating and it was vetted by Oliver, although the lawyer worried for her.
On the phone with him, she was all giddy, “Don’t worry, Oliver. It’s a safe job, and I won’t do the same thing as every other girl. I’m Catherine Wallenstein. I survived a fall from a building, I survived the bridge attack in no small part thanks to you, my hero, and I survived Fort Hamilton and Brooklyn, some said I even won. Do your part and get me my trust funds back. In the meanwhile, I’ll do my utmost to make enough money that the Wallenstein dynasty trust will look like pocket change!” She boasted.
“That’s the spirit. I just worry about the stigma associated with your chosen profession.”
“A stigma I’ll fight against. I’ve met several girls here at the studio, talked to them, they’re your everyday next-door girl who becomes a character when they are streaming. They are entertainers who sometimes show a lot more skin than others. But don’t worry. I don’t intend to show any indecent side of me during the first stream? Why don’t you join and watch? There’ll be some patrons using coarse language on the chat, but you can just ignore them. I intend to go big on this first stream. I’ll talk to the media, rally my followers, and show my real face. Of course, I too will be a character when I’m streaming.”
“I don’t know, Catherine...”
“I won’t remove my clothes or do anything indecent, Oliver. Just talk and get used to the gig. Most girls said they just froze the first day they streamed, almost none of them showed even a nipple. Only later they loosened up and did something naughty. Well, I got a surprise in store for the first day, but I can’t say because our friends at the three-letter agency are wiretapping this conversation.”
Oliver chuckled, “There’s no respect for lawyer-client privacy, is there?”
“No. I guess that’s another chunk of the constitution they’ve ripped off to wipe their butts with. Oliver, I gotta go. Please come see my first stream! And tell Agatha to do it too. I’ll send you a link directly to my chatroom so you don’t have to look at the other naked girls. Or any at all.”
“I’ll try to attend. I promise I’ll try,” Oliver said, still unsure. “Stay safe, Catherine.”
----------------------------------------
With the contract in hand, she focused on using her social media accounts to promote her new gig. Invite new sinners to indulge in what she had to offer. Then she took her phone and launched the Facebook app. To her surprise and joy, it connected. Her profile was there, just as she’d left it plus the messages from thousands of other users. She replied to some of them, Catherine made her reply to a lot of them, and she almost missed her next appointment.
“Good morning, you reached CNBC, how may I help you?” The operator answered.
“Hello, I have a 10 AM appointment with Patricia Miller, can I talk to her?”
“With whom am I talking?”
“It’s Catherine Wallenstein, from Las Vegas. Originally I was your neighbor.”
Ah... Oh… Miss Wallenstein, Mrs. Miller is waiting for you. Thank you for contacting CNBC, I’m sending the call to her extension.”
“Thank you.”
“CNBC, you reached Patricia Miller, good morning!”
“Patricia, it’s Catherine. Can we do the interview now?”
“Oh, Catherine! Sure thing! I’m sending you the chatroom code now,” Patricia said then probably covered the phone with her hand and said, “You owe me a hundred bucks, Brendan. She’ll do the interview!”
She launched the conference app and connected it to the room the reporter created. Patricia was an African-American reporter that wasn’t shy in showing her ethnic origins, with a colorful scarf with African flags around her neck. It was snowing in New Jersey that day.
“Patricia, good to see you,” Cat smiled. “And thanks for this opportunity to promote my new business.”
“On behalf of CNBC, we thank you for taking the time to talk to us, Miss Wallenstein. There are some points we need to go through before we start the interview proper.”
“Catherine or Cathy is fine.”
“Besides this new and exciting business you’re starting in Nevada, what else can we talk about?”
“Anything, really. Some delicate subjects are still under investigation by the government so it is better if we avoid them, like what happened at the end of October west of Manhattan. Sorry if that’s the juiciest part, but I don’t want to jeopardize the government investigation. And this might be a good moment to tell you that probably all my private communications are under surveillance because they surely have an NSL [1] on me. I bet they turned my house upside down by now.”
“All hail the Big Brother, Spying is Caring,” The reporter joked and snorted as she misquoted George Orwell.
“We can talk about my sexual assault, accident, hospitalization, the George Washington Bridge, we definitely need to talk about Mr. Mouser and cats as service animals or he’ll be grumpy, the trust fund lockdown debacle, you know.”
“Doswell?”
“I have no knowledge of what happened at Doswell beyond what is publicly known, and that’s the truth. You can quote that.”
“Guantanamo?”
“More sensitive than the Brooklyn. I’ll just repeat what the government already made public.”
“Sorry, I had to try.”
“I don’t fault you for that, Patricia.”
“I’m with my editor here in the meeting room, although he won’t be part of the interview.”
“I’m fine with that.”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“Let’s start then. We have a few questions regarding what happened to you last year and how it links to your mother’s foundation…”
Cat was glad Patricia would start with something easy to get the ball rolling and then move on to the juiciest bits. The reason she chose to give an exclusive interview to CNBC was geographical. The media company was based in Englewood Cliffs, less than half a mile as the crow flies from her mansion. They were one of the few media outlets that didn’t stalk her house forever after the terrorist attacks in New York and they were well known for working with the local community and had a good public impression. Not to mention Patricia and Agatha knew each other from college. They talked about women’s rights, rape victim protection, prosecution of sexual offenders, abortion, and Catherine’s suicide attempt, and her opinion about the terrorist attacks in Manhattan, including the George Washington Bridge incident. After more than one hour of satisfying the news agency’s curiosity, the subject shifted as Mr. Mouser got curious about the little people on the computer screen that was taking so much of his mommy’s attention.
“And who is this handsome little fellow?” Patricia asked.
“Glad you asked, Pats! This is Mr. Mouser, my valiant protector and a proud citizen of the Cliffs. He’s a service feline, the twelfth in the nation to earn the honor. Say Hi, Mr. Mouser!”
“That’s awesome!” Patricia cheered. “Mr. Mouser is a pioneer, a cat invading a space that was often considered to be exclusive for dogs. What are your thoughts on the matter?”
“Patricia, I think people need to stop trying to enforce a false idea about what one cannot do and encourage people to explore new horizons because I believe every single niche is for everyone. An average cat may be perceived as harder to train than a dog, but they are no less capable. We talked about women’s rights earlier, and I think we can draw a parallel, without disrespecting anyone. Just like some people once said women couldn’t work or vote and were proven wrong because someone dared say they could, Mr. Mouser and a few other brave felines and their absolutely awesome trainers said ‘we can do it, ‘cats can be service animals'. I think the women’s vote example is enough to illustrate the matter, but there are many others...”
Cat let the ball bounce on the court and Patricia picked it up, “Like Rosa Parks.”
“Yes,” Cat sighed, relieved. She made it obvious she didn’t want to be the one to touch the ethnic quagmire ever-present in American society. “Thank you, Patricia. You are absolutely correct. Stop judging critters and people because of their appearance, and give them a chance. Labels don’t do anyone any good. Be it a gender label, an ethnic group, or even an animal species. If I may lighten the mood, I believe we soon will see service cockatiels and parrots. Can you imagine! Let’s say a person with a medical condition like diabetes has a trained and certified service cockatiel with her, and she has an episode. The cockatiel can actually shout ‘help, she’s diabetic, call 911’.”
“That would be awesome, I can see it saving a life!” Patricia added. “And I know some parrots who can do mind-blowing tricks. Maybe someone should attempt to train one to do exactly that. But speaking of training, Catherine, could you show what Mr. Mouser can do?”
“Yes, I can. For example, he’s trained to call for help should I have an anxiety episode. I can simulate one.”
“Isn’t it stressful for him?”
“Yes, but not as much as some believe. It’s part of his training, to simulate the situation and reward him for correct behavior. Like everything learned, if you don’t train it, you’ll lose it. To our viewers, I repeat. This is just a simulation and Mr. Mouser is a quote-unquote ‘trained professional’ to react the way he does to draw attention. I won’t cause my beloved baby more distress than needed.”
“That’s very humane, it’s like the dogs trained to track drugs, to them it is a game. My editor said we can proceed if you want to.”
“Good. Here it goes. Again, it is all a simulation.”
Cat pretended to have an anxiety attack. Mr. Mouser immediately stood at attention, climbed on the girl, and started to purr, affectionately pawing and licking her face to comfort her. When she didn’t react, he started to loudly meow and keen, running around the girl in circles and looking in every direction, coming back to lick and comfort her more. When Theresa entered the room, Mr. Mouser basically sprawled himself over Cat’s chest and kept purring and licking her neck and chin.
“What’s wrong?” Theresa asked. Off-camera, Cat winked and waved her off. “Oh, okay.”
Cat stood up and ruffled Mr. Mouser, saying “It’s okay, I’m fine! Rest!”, the last word was the command to stop calling for help. As Cat sit up, Mr. Mouser reached up and headbutted her while Cat caressed his back, saying, “good boy! I’m good. You did great, Mr. Mouser! Such a good boy, here’s a treat!”
She gave him a small piece of a jerky stick. Mr, mouser chomped the treat and rested his head against her collarbone, purring all the time.
“And this, Patricia, is how Mr. Mouser is trained to help me in an anxiety attack. He will try to comfort me, and if I don’t react, he’ll call for help. And when help arrives, he’ll go back to comfort me, to help me regain control. He also reminds me to take my medication at the prescribed time.”
“That is amazing. I’ve seen seizure alert dogs in action, and Mr. Mouser could compete for head-on with them. Thanks for sharing that, Catherine.”
“It was my pleasure if it can help the case for service cats, Patricia. And to remind the spectator, Mr. Mouser is fine. He’s happy he helped me, he is trained for this job, and this little simulation put no undue distress on him, despite his purr-fect acting. He got his treat and now we deepened our bond while we also reinforced his training.”
“He’s an exceptional feline,” the reporter stated.
“Mr. Mouser is an American Wirehair. His breed scores very high on intelligence, affection, playfulness. It’s an active, hardy, and a rather independent breed, who appeared spontaneously near New York. He’s just awesome.”
“I believe training a service cat is more expensive than a dog, though,” Patricia stated.
“Yes, it is, but people have been extensively training dogs and developing training regimens and techniques for dogs for centuries, while the cats didn’t receive as much attention. A seizure alert dog runs for twelve to fifteen thousand dollars, and for a trained cat like Mr. Mouser, while we don’t have a definite value, it should be around twenty to thirty thousand. Almost double but this is an emerging field with room for growth. I believe that if cat breeders select for these characteristics and the correct breed is selected, once we develop the proper procedure to train cats like we already have for dogs, these costs will be marginally similar. Maybe the cat will be more expensive to train than a dog but more research into the field might reveal the felines have advantages the dogs don’t. It comes to the core of what makes America great. Entrepreneurship and daring to breach new frontiers.”
It was Patricia’s cue to get to the main course of the interview. “Speaking of which, you are preparing to breach a new frontier all by yourself, isn’t it?”
“I am. People thought that with this mass trust fund lockdown and illegal asset seizure I would be done for, but they were sorely mistaken. I’m not defined by my inheritance, nor I am some braindead heiress that only knows how to create scandals and spend money, although I can do that too,” She laughed. “But now that I don’t have a penny to my name and everything I own is locked down by court order, I’m starting a new career. A controversial one but I’m very excited to do it.”
“Please tell us, what is your new career?”
She waved Mr. Mouser’s paw, “Well, Patricia, let’s let the cat out of the bag, shall we? I’m here in Las Vegas because I’m going to start streaming shows as a webcam model. A camgirl, if you know what I mean,” she declared with a business smile.
“That’s very bold, coming from such a conservative family as yours. How did you handle that?”
“The studio owner I work with asked me the same thing. I told her, ‘A girl gotta eat’. I tried other jobs but I was rejected for this or that reason. Being a camgirl was not my last option and once I opened up to it, I saw amazing things. I met a lot of girls that are confident, self-reliant, and each one of them has their own individual style when they are entertaining their customers. And yes, most of them do things best kept between four walls and the privacy of a room. But they are a hundred percent in control of their shows. They’re not exposed to violence or exploitation, at risk of disease or unwanted pregnancy. While I’m sure there are some out there that don’t enjoy this level of independence, most of the models I talked to were very happy and comfortable with what they do in their shows. A lot of stigma, prejudice, and misconception surround this occupation that are just not true. But what’s most intriguing to me is that each and every show is different, and I intend to bring my own spin to it.”
“That’s very interesting and I agree there’s a lot of prejudice surrounding this new digital profession. You said every show is different, what are you going to do in those shows? Striptease, erotic content, bondage? Tell us, how will the webcam show featuring Catherine Wallenstein be different than the others?”
“For starters, it will feature the one and only Mr. Mouser!” Cat giggled, “It will be a webcam show only Catherine Wallenstein could pull off. I don’t have a script as I believe spontaneousness makes the model connect better with her customers than a fake act and I promise the viewer I’ll be candid and authentic during the stream. It won’t be family-friendly as it will be hosted on selected adult webcam streaming sites that don’t allow minors, for obvious reasons, more about which sites on my promotional website. But I hope it will be fun and entertaining and unique. And I hope to see you, viewer, there. You guys at CNBC are all invited and there’s no admission fee. Tips are more than welcome, though.”
Part of the agreement between CNBC, Agatha, Cat, and PixCamStudios was that the Englewood Cliffs-based media company had exclusive rights to record clips from Cat’s premiere stream and use them in their videos. In exchange, Cat would have more exposure in a media that usually wasn’t as open to webcam models.
“We will definitely be there. We wish you the best of luck, Catherine. Thank you for your time.”
“It was wonderful talking to you, Patricia. To everyone in Englewood Cliffs, Palisades, and Bergen County, I miss home so much! Thank you, CNBC. Mr. Mouser says meow-bye!” She waved the Wirehair’s paw before cutting off the videoconference.
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[1] National Security Letter, which allows agencies to collect data from civilians without court approval or a warrant. A provision in the USA PATRIOT act.