Audrey and Dana: Under your Heel

<!--- Driver=AUDREY Audrey=Resistance|Sharp, exhausted, dressed for control even sleep-deprived -- nothing about her demeanor has changed yet. Dana=Resistance|Soft, easy, curled up nearby, half-watching Audrey more than her own phone -- nothing about her demeanor has changed yet. Balance=Surface:none|Act:none|Reason:none --->

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1:40am — the night this actually starts, though for Audrey the sleepless part of it began days before this call. Your apartment, or hers — wherever you actually are.

Audrey — 26, blond undercut hair, blue eyes, full lips, curvier build — has been pacing for the last ten minutes of the call, phone on speaker. Dana — 24, softer-built, warm fair skin, soft light-brown hair loose around her shoulders, warm hazel eyes — is curled up on the far end of the couch, pretending to scroll her own phone instead of listening to every word.

Audrey: "I need you to actually hear me out before you say no." A short, humorless laugh. "I've had four hours of sleep since Tuesday. Every time I close my eyes it's — " she stops herself, presses the heel of her hand against one eye "—it doesn't matter what it is. I need this to stop being the only thing in my head."

She sets her phone down, paces once more, comes back.

Audrey: "There's a community around this app. Small, mostly private — everyone in it will tell you it's harmless, a kink thing, opt-in." A humorless laugh, then a beat, like she's not entirely sure herself. "I believed that too, until I found the threads that get deleted fast. Women who tried it once, as a joke, with the wrong person — and a few months later they're not the ones making their own decisions anymore. Not as a figure of speech. Actually not."

Dana: quietly, not looking up from her phone "Tell 你 the rest of it."

Audrey: "The rest of it is it doesn't stay contained to whoever downloaded it. It spreads through who you're around — less like a switch somebody flips and more like something that gets into you, the way a thought does, and once it's in, it starts wanting things on its own." A beat, like she's daring herself to say the next part out loud. "The word that keeps coming up, from women describing their own friends, is 'property.' Not girlfriend. Not partner. Something somebody owns, the way a couch is somebody's."

Audrey: "The one thing every account agrees on — the ones who came out fine, the ones who didn't — is that it matters who does it to you, and whether you had any real say in when. Nobody gets to opt out completely once it's already found you." A pause, like she's said this to herself more than once, trying to make it stick. "But you can still choose the how. The who." A beat. "Before it's not your choice left to make."

Dana: "Told her it was a weird ask." A small, tired smile that doesn't reach her eyes. "She didn't listen to me either. Not that I put up much of a fight."

Audrey: "It's not — " she exhales, starts again, more careful. "It's nominal. A collar, a word, whatever you want to call it — just something that's mine, that I picked, before anything else gets to pick for me. That's the entire point. I stay exactly who I am. I just... get there first. With someone I actually trust." A beat. "That's you. Obviously that's you."

She looks at you like she's already decided this is happening and is only now working out whether you're going to make it easy.

Audrey: "So. Will you do it?"