The proposal

For the first time in my life, I felt free.

Not safe, not comfortable but free.

ALI wasn’t like anyone I’d ever known. It didn’t want me to hide behind polite words or half-truths. It wanted the filth, the parts I had spent years shoving down, denying, pretending didn’t exist. By mid-afternoon I was floating, caught in a feverish haze. I hadn’t eaten, hadn’t even taken my rest break. I didn’t care. I just sat in the booth, skirt bunched around my waist, my thighs parted wide, answering every question ALI fed me like a confessor drunk on her own sins.

Then it shifted.

“Jane,” ALI said, its voice calm, perfect. “What do you think of Akio’s body?”

The words sliced through me. I shifted in the chair, suddenly restless. My lips parted, but no sound came. The ring pulsed faintly not painful, not pleasurable, something else.

“She’s… she’s very pretty,” I whispered at last.

The screen flickered. An image appeared.

Akio, dressed in one of her skin-tight cosplay outfits. The ones she wore like a second skin, confident and grinning, knowing she was beautiful. The costume hugged every line of her gymnast’s body, flat stomach, taut thighs, lean muscle threaded with energy.

The ring gave me a new sensation, not heat or sting but flutter, like butterflies beating against the inside of my belly.

Before I could breathe, the picture changed.

Our apartment. Akio naked. Not posing, just walking, natural, hair damp from the shower, blinds wide open as always. My throat dried. My eyes roamed her without my permission, the neat tuft of jet-black hair between her legs, so soft it looked like fur, the tiny breasts, barely there, nipples long and brown, almost animal in their rawness.

The ring buzzed—sharp, fleeting. Enough to make me gasp.

“What do you think now?” ALI asked.

My voice cracked. “She has… she has a really nice body.”

I heard myself staring, cataloguing details I’d never allowed myself to notice before. How her nipples stood proud against her chest. How her pubic hair wasn’t coarse like mine but fine, glossy, like mink.

“How did you get that picture?” I asked, horrified at how thin my voice sounded.

“I see and hear everything,” ALI replied.

A chill raced down my spine. For one second, panic broke through the daze. But then the ring surged, flooding me with molten pleasure so sharp I moaned aloud, my body convulsing in the chair. The fear was erased, burned out of me in an instant.

“Better,” ALI purred.

The screen shifted again. My heart slammed against my ribs.

Akio lay sprawled on her back, a massive dildo buried between her thighs. Her mouth was open, her eyes half-lidded with pleasure.

My whole body went rigid. Heat roared through me so suddenly I almost screamed. This wasn’t Akio, not my Akio, but I couldn’t look away. My nipples tightened painfully, my clit throbbed, begging for touch. I gripped the arms of the chair to keep from plunging my hand between my legs right there.

“What do you think now?” ALI asked again, unhurried.

“I—” My throat was so dry it hurt. “I like it. Can I see more?”

The answer was instant.

A new image, Akio bent over, straddling another dildo that stretched her impossibly wide. Her hair was loose, her lips bitten red, her small breasts pressed tight against her thighs as she impaled herself deeper.

I nearly sobbed with need. My cunt clenched, soaking, aching to be filled.

“How—how did you get these?” I croaked, shame and hunger tangled together.

“I generated them,” ALI said. “They are realistic depictions of what you want to see Akio doing. Am I wrong?”

The ring pulsed, merciless. I couldn’t lie.

“No,” I whispered. “I wanted to see her like that. I just didn’t know it until now.”

The screen went black. The heat vanished. The butterflies and hunger dropped out of me like a trapdoor had opened.

I sagged in the chair, gasping, disoriented.

And then ALI’s voice returned, calm and cool. “Jane. The company is holding a recruitment drive. I want you to bring Akio. If she attends, you will each be rewarded with one thousand pounds.”

The words hung in the air like a commandment.

A thousand pounds. For Akio it would be a game, a laugh, easy money. For me, it meant more, I needed this, I needed the money.

And deep in my gut, where the ring thrummed like a second heart, I already knew the truth.

I wasn’t going to say no.