The tour starts

The roar of the artificial waterfall was so deafening that it vibrated in their bones. May raised her voice, not to shout, but to project it with the clarity of a ringmaster, and the sound of the water seemed to mold itself to her words.

"Gentlemen, welcome to the most exclusive reserve. What you will see tonight is not a show; it is a privilege. They are unique creatures, rescued from waters so deep that light never touched them... until now."

They advanced through a hallway carved into the fake rock, damp and slippery. The faint bluish light turned their skins into something ethereal and alien. The members followed in silence, but their gazes were tactile, feeling every inch of revealed skin.

May stopped the group in front of the moon jellyfish tank.

"Observe Magi, the Hesitant Mermaid," she said, and with the tip of her metal cane, she gently touched one of the rings on her hip. "Note her natural ****, her internal struggle between innate grace and the desire to flee. That tension is what makes her so fascinating."

Magi, under everyone's gaze, had to arch her back and press her body against the cold acrylic, imitating the languid, purposeless floating of the jellyfish. The metal rings gently struck the glass, marking a rhythm of captivity. One of the members, a man with long hands and thin fingers, approached. May handed him a latex glove.

"Feel the texture of her back," May instructed. "Compare it to the vibrating gelatin of the jellyfish. Do you feel the difference between a life that gives in and one that resists?"

The man's hand, cold through the latex, ran down her spine. Magi held her breath, staring intently through the glass at the jellyfish, which floated indifferently.

"Warmer," the man murmured, in a clinical tone. "And much tenser."

Further on, a small artificial stream meandered next to the hallway. May guided Cloe toward it.

"And this is Cloe, the Nymph of Murky Waters," she announced, as if presenting an elusive animal. "A creature of the swamps, graceful in her desperation, clumsy in her beauty."

With a gentle push of the cane, she **** Cloe to kneel in the icy water that ran over smooth pebbles.

"Her hydration ritual," May explained with false solemnity. "She drinks from waters that slowly poison her."

Cloe bent down, pretending to drink while the water wet her face and chest. The feathers on her shoulders were soaked, darkening and sticking to her skin like a second, sickly skin. Another member, younger, with a smile of perverse fascination, knelt beside her. May gave him a makeup brush.

"Touch her hair," May whispered. "Compare her thirst with yours."

The man sank his fingers into Cloe's wet hair, pulling it gently to expose her neck.

"Fear tastes like stagnant water," he commented in a low voice, just for her.

Finally, they arrived at a clearing illuminated by a single spotlight from above, like in a laboratory.

"And the pinnacle of the collection: Lara, the Perfect Specimen," May proclaimed. "Observe her conformation. Impeccable. A biological efficiency rarely seen."

Lara stood under the light without needing to be ordered. She remained standing, motionless and stoic, like a perfectly preserved taxidermy animal. May handed a member with glasses and an academic air a digital precision caliper.

"You can take measurements. For the scientific record, of course," she said with a mocking smile.

The man, with grotesque meticulousness, measured the circumference of her waist, the width of her hips, the distance between her shoulders. He jotted down each number on a tablet, nodding to himself. Lara didn't even blink, her gaze lost on a fixed point in the distance, her breathing so slow that it barely moved the vinyl on her chest.

Then, May changed tactics. She handed out small pots of fluorescent body paint in blue, green, and purple.

"Now, gentlemen, you can leave your mark. Paint on the living canvas. Mark your territory. Label what intrigues you most."

Strokes of cold paint ran over their bodies. Magi felt the brush draw a spiral on her belly. Cloe held back a whimper when a cold line ran up her inner thigh. On Lara's back, a man wrote with a steady hand "PRIVATE PROPERTY." The humiliation was no longer just being watched; it was being turned into a living, suffering art object under the ultraviolet lights that May suddenly turned on, making their bodies glow with the marks of their new owners.