He has the perfect role for her.

Josh’s mocking words and the group’s nervous laughter still echoed in the thin air of the auditorium. Sabrina had already turned around, her marked back and tattered tunic standing as a silent witness to her defeat, when Mr. Miller’s voice stopped her slow and painful retreat.

“Wait, Sabrina.”

She stopped, but did not turn; she felt that her skin, already wounded and exposed, could not bear the weight of a single glance more. However, the director’s voice did not hold the pity she expected, but rather a macabre enthusiasm that made her stomach churn. Miller watched with professional fascination the marks on her shoulders, the red ink stain on her buttock, and the transparency of the rags Sabrina could barely hold together.

“It’s perfect!” Miller exclaimed, with the smile of a director who has just had a revelation. “We are rehearsing Caligula! We need the court ****, the one who is publicly humiliated. Not even the costume department could achieve such verisimilitude!”

Sabrina felt a frozen void. She understood that, to Miller, she was no longer a student in crisis, but a prop accessory—a highly realistic one. Josh smirked, suggesting that Sabrina wouldn’t even have to act, but simply “be herself.” Humiliation flared in her chest with renewed ****, only to be quickly replaced by a chilled resignation; she no longer had the strength to flee.

“Wonderful!” Miller shouted, rubbing his hands together. “But first, we must adjust the costume so it is... honest.”

Miller approached her in the center of the stage. Sabrina felt a paralyzing terror when the director, with a sudden movement devoid of any delicacy, grabbed the two silk strips she had been unable to tie and yanked them with ****. The fabric, already weakened by the day’s ****, gave way instantly with a dry whisper.

Sabrina felt the impact of the cold air directly on her naked skin, but what hurt most was the loss of that last miserable scrap of cloth that separated her from the gaze of others. She stood there, under the spotlights that suddenly felt like interrogators, as Miller hung a thick cardboard sign around her neck with a string that read: "VILIS - DEFECTUS" (Cheap - Defective). The weight of the cardboard against her bare chest was the physical confirmation of her annihilation.

“Just like that!” Miller exclaimed, absorbed in his "work." “Now, action!”

Josh, playing the merchant, began to shout about the “weak-willed merchandise.” Sabrina felt his possessive hands on her shoulder, squeezing the flesh right over the SPQR mark while commenting on its quality to Laura. Laura joined the “inspection,” sliding her fingers down Sabrina’s spine to the red mark on her buttock.

Sabrina closed her eyes tightly, trying to escape into the interior of her own mind, but there was no corner where her classmates' touch did not reach. She felt every brush of Josh’s fingers, every pinch from Laura, and the rough rub of the sign against her skin. She felt like an object, a piece of furniture, a carnival animal that had ceased to be human to become the map of her own degradation. The rehearsal, the play, and her life had merged: now and forever, she was the show.