Preparations for Sofia's debut

May's office smelled of aggressive cleanliness and an expensive perfume that caught in the throat. Sofia, with her baggy jeans and paint-stained sweatshirt, felt like vulgar graffiti in an impeccable art gallery. May, behind her desk, didn't look at her when she entered; she was reviewing a tablet with the intensity of a surgeon preparing to operate.

"Sit down, Sofia," she said without looking up. "Your debut is today. At noon."

Sofia slumped into the leather chair, which creaked like a broken bone. Her heart hammered against her ribs.

"So... so soon? I thought that..."

"Thinking is my job, not yours," May interrupted her, finally looking up. Her eyes were two pieces of ice. "Your presentation will be simple. Elegant. You will show yourself to the subscribers in your purest, rawest form. And they will decide your... packaging."

She slid the tablet across the desk. On the screen was a diagram of the structure with the white cloth.

"You will be behind this. Naked. Only your silhouette. An elegant, promising shadow. And then, my other girls will model the options. The subscribers will vote." A smile as thin as a scar. "We are democratizing art, Sofia."

Sofia paled. The blood seemed to leave her face, leaving her cold. It wasn't a performance; it was a meat auction. Her body, reduced to an anonymous shadow, put up for a vote. She felt a sudden dizziness, the urge to vomit. She had signed up for nudity, for pain, but not for this. Not for this calculated coldness, this ritualized dispossession.

"I... I don't know if I can," she managed to stammer, her fingers clutching the arms of the chair.

"Of course you can," May's voice was silky, but with a steel edge. "It’s the easiest thing you’ll do today. You just have to stay still and quiet. Like a good blank canvas." She stood up. "Magi will take you to the dressing room. She will prepare you."

Magi entered at that moment, as if she had been waiting behind the door. Her face was a mask of professional neutrality, but her eyes, for an instant, met Sofia's, and in them there was no joy, but an echo of understanding, a flash of I went through this too.

"Follow me," Magi said, her voice devoid of inflection.

The walk to the dressing room was a trance. Sofia walked like an automaton, May's words echoing in her head: "elegant shadow," "packaging," "blank canvas." Magi walked beside her, in a silence that wasn't comfortable, but not hostile either.

Upon reaching the dressing room, a cold and impersonal cubicle, Magi closed the door. Sofia collapsed against the wall, tears beginning to blur her vision.

"I can't do it," she whispered, hugging herself. "I can't stand there... naked... to be judged."

Magi didn't approach. She didn't touch her. She stood before her, arms crossed over her torso, a gesture that seemed both defensive and self-containing.

"Yes, you can," Magi said, and her voice sounded different; lower, raspier, less May's assistant and more the experienced prisoner. "Because if you don't, what comes next will be worse. This is just the beginning. The controlled shock." She paused, swallowing hard. "Out there, behind that cloth, they aren't people. They are eyes. They are subscriptions. They are the money that will pay for your freedom later. Focus on that. That every gaze is a tube of oil paint, a block of marble. Endure, and tomorrow you can buy them all."

It was the same lie they had sold her. The same lie she now repeated like a poisoned mantra. But in her voice, there was no conviction, only a **** urgency, as if by convincing Sofia, she was convincing herself that all the pain was worth it.

"They... Lara, Cloe..." Sofia stammered.

"They went through this too," Magi cut in, her voice regaining some hardness. "And they survived. You will survive too." She pointed to Sofia's clothes. "Now, get undressed. The faster you do it, the less it hurts to think about it."

Sofia, with silent tears running down her cheeks, obeyed. Her trembling hands removed her sweatshirt, her jeans. She stood in her underwear, feeling the cold air of the dressing room like a premonition.

Magi handed her a disposable paper gown, rough and crinkly.

"This is for the way there. You won't wear anything out there."

Sofia put on the gown. She felt ridiculous and ****. Magi opened the door.

"Remember," Magi said, just before leaving. "They are just eyes. And you are stronger than their gazes."

It was a lie. They both knew it. But it was the only currency of value Magi could offer her in that hell. A practical tip to survive the dispossession: dehumanize the spectators so as not to fully feel one's own dehumanization. And with that fragile mental shield, Sofia left the dressing room, allowing Magi to guide her toward the white screen waiting to project her naked silhouette to the world.