Chapter 6: The Human Touch
The numbers on the screen bled into a gray haze. Column A, Column B. Nothing computed. Orihime’s pen tapped a frantic, silent rhythm against the desk, her other hand absently kneading the tense muscle of her thigh through her tight skirt. The ghost sensation of her own fingers, parting herself for the camera two nights ago, lingered like a low-grade fever. It made the coarse fabric of her chair feel intrusive.
A buzz. Sharp and metallic against the cardboard takeout container serving as a coaster.
Her personal phone, face-down. She flipped it over, the glow painting her chin blue.
Sender: Studio Verite.
Her throat closed. She glanced around the cubicle farm. The manager was laughing too loudly by the water cooler. The janitor was slowly mopping the same spot of floor for the third time, his eyes flicking toward her partition. She swiveled her chair, putting her back to the room, creating a tiny wall of privacy.
She opened the email. Inoue,
Thank you for your submission. It was very… compelling. My name is Takeda. I run Studio Verite. We’re a very small operation. No scripts, no professional actors. We just film two ordinary people—office workers, usually—meeting and letting things happen naturally. The authenticity is what our viewers connect with.
We’d be very interested in working with you. Are you available this Saturday afternoon for a shoot? We have a male actor available. His name is—
Orihime’s breath caught. She scrolled.
Actually, to preserve that natural feeling, I’d like you to review the profiles of our available actors and choose someone you feel you could have a genuine connection with. Chemistry is everything. I’ve attached a link below (password protected). Please take your time.
All the best,
Takeda
A genuine connection. The phrase looped in her head, absurd and electrifying. This wasn’t a corporate merger. It was sex. Filmed sex. Yet the pretense of choice, of curation, felt like a sip of water in the desert of her last five years. Ichigo had never asked for her preference. Ichigo had never asked for anything at all.
Her fingers trembled as she copied the link and entered the password: verite2024.
The page loaded, stark and simple. Three profiles. No last names. Just a first name, an age, a profession, and a single, casual photo.
Kenji, 42. Account Manager. The photo showed a man with a kind, tired face and slightly receding hairline, smiling awkwardly at what looked like a company barbecue. He held a paper plate sagging with potato salad.
Satoshi, 38. Logistics Coordinator. He was lean, caught mid-laugh on a hiking trail, squinting against the sun. He looked like he didn’t own an iron.
Ryo, 35. IT Support. The photo was a selfie, slightly blurry, taken in a messy home office filled with computer parts. He had a sharp, intelligent gaze and a half-smile that seemed to question the very act of taking the picture.
Office workers. Just like her. No polished performers, no gym-rat gods. Real bodies. Real lives.
She imagined it. Saturday. A room somewhere. Meeting one of them. The quiet, terrible awkwardness. A conversation about the weather, about commute times. And then… the silent agreement. The unbuttoning. The shedding of their ordinary clothes. Her heavy breasts, freed from the tight shirt, would ache. His hands, probably calloused from typing or fixing cables, would touch her. Would touch the hair she had so meticulously displayed, would find the wetness she had proofed on camera.
A heat pooled low in her belly, sudden and shocking in its intensity. It was a clean, sharp feeling, cutting through the numb frustration that usually lived there.
“Inoue. The quarterly report.”
She jerked, slamming the phone face-down on the desk. The manager, Mr. Endo, stood at the entrance of her cubicle, his suit straining over his gut. His eyes, as always, performed a sluggish inventory: her face, her throat, the desperate cleavage her button-down presented.
“It’s… almost ready,” she lied, her voice steady even as her heart hammered against her ribs.
“See that it is. The vice president is asking.” His gaze lingered a moment too long on the space between her breasts before he ambled away.
The threat of Ichigo, the absent husband, was the only lock on his cage. Orihime looked back at her darkened phone screen, seeing her own wide-eyed reflection in the black glass.
She had spent years being looked at like that—like a piece of meat in a window, desired but untouchable, owned by a ghost. Takeda’s email, these profiles, they offered a grotesque and thrilling reversal. She wouldn’t be a spectator to her own neglect. She would choose. She would be seen, completely, by someone she selected. And she would let them do everything Ichigo never had.
Her finger hovered over the screen.
She clicked on Ryo’s profile again. IT Support. A problem-solver. She imagined his hands, precise and capable. She typed a reply to Takeda, her keystrokes firm and final.
Dear Takeda,
Thank you for your message. Saturday afternoon works for me.
She typed, then paused.Her thumb hovered over the send icon.
The cursor blinked, a tiny, relentless pulse.She deleted the last line.Her knuckles were white.
She began typing again, her expression flat, her words deliberate.I’m available Saturday. But… the men in the profiles.They seem nice.They look like the men in my office.
She took a sharp breath, then finished the thought.I’m not looking for nice. I’m looking for something real.Ugly.An ugly bastard.Fat, with a belly. The kind who leers.Do you have anyone like that?She hit send before she could choke. The swoosh sound was final. A wave of nausea, hot and acidic, washed up from her stomach.She pressed a hand to her mouth.What had she just done? She had named the hunger, given it a shape—a fat, leering shape. It was out there now, in Takeda’s inbox.
She shoved the phone into her purse, as if burying evidence.The rest of the workday passed in a muffled silence.Spreadsheets. Emails.Mr.Endo’s roaming eyes felt different now.They didn’t spark irritation. They fed a secret, simmering calibration. Yes, like that, she thought, catching his gaze.But more. The janitor’s stained uniform, the way he leaned on his mop.Her mind undressed him, imagined the pallid skin, the soft, unchecked hair. A strange power settled in her chest.At home, the empty apartment felt charged.She paced. She made tea and didn’t drink it.The TV droned. When her phone finally chimed with a new email, she flinched.Takeda’s reply was succinct.
Understood.Refreshing honesty.New link below.Same password.Her mouth was dry. She clicked.A new page loaded, this one less polished.No friendly photos from company picnics. Just a list.Names, ages, and brief, brutally frank descriptions.
Koji, 51.Divorced.Truck driver.Severe sleep apnea.Significant belly, back hair. Passionate.Masato, 48.Security guard (night shift).Hemorrhoids. Likes to talk dirty.Uncircumcised.Haruto, 55. Part-time janitor, part-time flea market vendor.Several missing teeth.Enjoys being directed.
The list went on.Ten, fifteen men. The descriptions grew more graphic, a clinical inventory of human flaws: fungal toenails, pungent body odor, poorly healed scars, distinctive birthmarks. One entry read: Goro, 60.Pensioner.History of treatable STDs. Significant smegma.Very enthusiastic.Orihime’s breath came in shallow pulls. She was not aroused, not exactly.This was darker, deeper. It was the collapse of a fantasy into something visceral and sour and undeniable.These were the men who haunted the edges of the train platform at night. The ones with yellowed eyes and damp handshakes. The ones whose glances weren’t just appreciative but sticky, possessive.They were the antithesis of Ichigo’s clean, absent indifference.
She scanned the list again.Her pulse hammered in her wrists. This was the truth of her wanting, laid bare in Courier New font.It was ugly.It was hers.
Her finger, cool and steady, tapped the screen.
Her finger, cool and steady, tapped the screen. It landed on the final entry: Haruto.Fifty-five. Part-time janitor, part-time flea market vendor.The description was a stark, unsparing list.Several missing teeth. Enjoys being directed.History of treatable STDs.Significant smegma.Very enthusiastic.
She stared until the words lost their meaning, becoming just shapes on glass. This was the logical end of the path she’d started when she angled her phone between her thighs. It wasn’t about beauty or connection.It was about proof.Proof that she could be wanted by someone truly wanting. Proof that she could touch something as real and neglected as she felt.
“Haruto,” she said aloud.The name tasted of stale cigarette smoke and cheap sake.
Her reply to Takeda was only two words: I choose Haruto.She sent it, then stood abruptly from the couch. The empty apartment seemed to watch her, the shadows from the streetlight stretching like accusatory fingers. She needed air that didn’t smell of her own stagnant life.
She walked to the window, pulling the thin curtain aside.The city pulsed below, a thousand anonymous lights. One of them was Haruto’s, probably in some tiny apartment cluttered with unsold flea market junk. Did he know her yet?Was he thinking about Saturday?Her phone chimed almost instantly.Takeda. Excellent.He’s available.Saturday, 3 PM.Address to follow. Please wear your normal office clothes.Nothing special.The mundanity of the instructions chilled her.This was a transaction. A meeting. A thing on a calendar, between “quarterly report” and “grocery shopping."