One animal, one hour, every day, for as long as she wants

For three years I walked somebody's dog at a quarter past six every morning. I had a key to a lobby and a set of instructions and I saw the woman herself perhaps twice a month. That was the arrangement in its entirety and it was the most stable thing in my life.

Thirty eight, Brooklyn, six years in this. That arrangement ended when the dog died, which sounds like a joke and was in fact the worst month I have had in a decade, and the two of us are still in touch.

What I have learned about myself from it is that I do not need attention. I need a duty that cannot be skipped and somebody who would notice immediately if it were. A dog is the ideal version of that because a dog does not care how you feel at ten past six.

So what I want is a daily obligation with a living thing or a household attached to it. Animals, plants, an elderly relative's shopping, anything that has to happen whether or not anybody is in the mood.

I do not want anything physical or sexual, I do not want to be present for anybody's evening, and I do not want to be paid, which was offered at the start of the last one and which I declined, and she later told me that was the moment she decided to trust me with the key. I am available every morning, permanently, and I do not travel.