Suggest recruiting female customers

You take a breath, trying to frame your suggestion as rationally as possible despite the tremor in your voice.

"What if we started with approaching some of the regular female customers?" you say carefully. "They come in here looking for specific things anyway. Maybe some of them would be interested in performing. We wouldn't have to involve ourselves directly, and we could focus on finding willing participants who—"

"No." Jordan cuts you off sharply, straightening up from the shelving unit. Their expression hardens in a way you haven't seen before—a shift from panic into something more calculating. "That won't work."

You blink. "Why not? Some of them might—"

"Because we don't have time," Jordan interrupts, moving closer to you. "Do you understand what Thursday means? Four days, Daisy. Four days to film, edit, and have forty-seven pieces of content ready to go. We're not going to find random female customers, convince them to perform, schedule shoots, and produce quality material in ninety-six hours. It's not happening."

Jordan's eyes narrow as they study your face, and you can see them making a calculation. When they speak again, their voice drops lower, taking on a different tone—something between frustrated and almost gentle.

"Plus," Jordan continues, "it's not like you've never done this before. I've seen those videos."

The words hit you like a physical blow. Your stomach drops, heat flooding your face as shame crashes over you in waves. Those videos—the ones that destroyed your relationship with your parents, the ones that circulated through your high school like a plague, the ones that made you feel like your body belonged to the internet rather than to yourself. You'd tried so hard to move past that, to convince yourself it was behind you, and now Jordan is casually weaponizing it.

"That was different," you whisper, but your voice barely carries.

"Was it?" Jordan's tone isn't cruel exactly, but it's not kind either—it's pragmatic, stripping away pretense. "You recorded yourself. You sent those videos to people. You performed for the camera. This is actually less humiliating because at least you'd be getting paid, and at least you wouldn't be sending intimate footage to people who can use it to humiliate you later."

They step even closer, and you can smell their cologne—something sharp and expensive that their retail salary definitely doesn't account for. "Look, I'm not trying to be a dick here. But the math doesn't lie. We need content fast. We need it to be quality. And we need a draw. Female customers aren't going to make that happen in four days. But you? You could."

Jordan's gaze travels down your body and back up to your face, and there's an assessment happening there that makes your skin crawl even as some treacherous part of you registers that they're looking at you with something like genuine desire. It's manipulative and transparent, but it's also effective.

"Think about it practically," Jordan says, their voice taking on an almost reasonable tone now. "We put you on camera with some of the guys who come in here. They'd be lining up around the block. We film it, we edit it, we have inventory. Your job is saved. My job is saved. Everyone wins."

You stand frozen, unable to formulate a response that doesn't involve either complete capitulation or outright refusal—and you've never been good at refusing.