The door settled back to its neutral. The booth exhaled the kind of air that has been used for truth and would like to be ordinary again. The red tally over the lens cooled to a patient eye.
Rita slid into the threshold without crossing into the lights. She held her phone like a receipt. Boone occupied the hall the way a river occupies a bed. Victor tucked a coil back into its shape and let his hands go still.
"Caption window has twenty seconds left," Rita said. "Aisha's on."
"Speaker," I said.
Aisha's voice made the blankets feel like a desk. "Morals clause 12.4," she said. "Cooperation with brand activations in good faith - provided no illegal conduct, no demeaning conduct, no defamation, no violation of privacy. We add an addendum with four explicit rules: no humiliation, caption window minimum six minutes for cuts quoting Maya; no unannounced intimacy for any on-air interaction; consent required for any physical proximity staged as narrative. I'll include advise, not interfere as a context note."
"Make five," I said. "No prompts that force us to use other women as props."
"Drafting," Aisha said. Keys sang quiet law. "Rita, sending draft addendum now. If Vivian accepts by email reply, we have paper in five minutes."
Rita's screen blinked white. "Open," she said. "Screen share on." She tilted so I could read and not touch. The paragraph blocks sat neat and unsentimental. She left a cursor space after consent and looked at me.
"Add 'on record'," I said. "Consent on record."
Rita typed it exactly, no synonyms. Victor lifted his phone once. "I have the rule sheet frame on the booth table," he said. "Full paragraph in focus, your nail for human scale, tally red in the corner. Time code visible."
"Good," Aisha said. "Boone?"
"Corridor holds," Boone said. "Vivian two doors down. Nolan counting ceiling tiles. Serena inbound on wide in thirty seconds."
"Later deliverable," Rita said. "We take it on our terms."
We moved as a small, practiced animal. Boone brought the corridor with him. Rita floated at my left shoulder with the phone like a lighthouse. Victor closed the booth quietly, the way you avoid waking a house that has given you one decent thing today.
At the corner, the world widened into the service cross where three sets share air. Panel B's arch glowed like a tooth. The main courtyard murmured with an audience returning from ads. A handler's walk announced Serena before her face did.
She came around the angle with her badge, her smile in professional mode, and her cardigan doing PR for soft fabric. She did not look at me. I did not look at her. The camera that belonged to wide found the space between us and approved.
"Wide on Serena pass," Rita said, barely breath. Her phone caught the frame - Serena center, me background, three arm lengths, no touch, handler visible, Vivian at far edge as a noun. Time stamp burned in the corner like a polite candle.
Vivian let the pass live. She held a tablet in one hand and a future in the other. Her assistants wrote down nothing and everything.
"Thank you," Vivian said to the hallway, the way weather thanks a barometer. "Later deliverable achieved."
"Logged with conditions," Rita said, still not looking up from the screen. "No unannounced intimacy. Caption window when cut. Consent on record."
Serena's handler steered her toward the arch of Panel B. The host laughed somewhere like a man seasoning soup he hadn't tasted. A PA shot past with a new pack of cue cards. A different PA tried to angle a tablet into my path.
PROMPT: handhold at threshold.
Boone existed. The prompt decided the floor was fascinating.
"Try the side door," a producer hissed from the wall. "We can catch fingers without faces."
Rita didn't raise her head. "Addendum point three," she said. "No unannounced intimacy. Any hand becomes litigation."
The producer's mouth made a shape like a budget learning shame.
Aisha listened through the speaker like a ghost with a bar license. "Send me the name of any producer who attempts to bypass addendum," she said. "I will cc Standards."
"Copy," Rita said. "Draft out in sixty seconds."
We slipped along the edge where fake brick meets real cinderblock. The stagehand with the friendly death wish hovered again with the tablet. New face. PROMPT: Ask about marriage. The font stayed chipper. The word marriage enjoyed its own reflection.
Rita's thumb flicked once. Flash. A small square of time fell into her pocket.
"Stop fishing," I said without slowing. "We are not your river."
Panel B's backline was a modest chaos - stools bolted to the riser, a glass pitcher that photographs as hospitality, three lav packs humming like quiet opinions. The host checked the script behind his smile and then checked with me like a man who wants to survive his own show.
"Quick panel on boundaries," he said, voice for people and not the lens. "One minute on the clock. Serena, you, Brand Rep from Halcyon, and a relationship therapist who learned television last year."
"Caption window for any quotes," Rita said to him as if he were a legal pad. He nodded the nod of a person paid to enjoy rules.
"Mic," Victor said. He touched my collar and a piece of the cable that always knows more about the day than anyone wants. "Wind still your friend."
Boone, from the wing: "Crowd leaning in. No hands raised with hardware that doesn't belong. Nolan relocated to faux-deli."
"Aisha," Rita said. "Draft addendum ready to send."
"Insert your full signature," Aisha said. "Tap consent box. Send to Vivian, CC counsel, CC Brand, BCC me."
Rita did it with the efficiency of a person who has had to learn three different signature platforms in one month. "Sent," she said. "Thread titled Addendum - No Humiliation - Consent on Record."
Aisha's keyboard approved. "I will reply-all with acceptance language. If they breathe on camera, you have teeth."
The host's ear caught a word from the floor. He lifted his head, smiled into neutral space, and then turned to us. "We're up in two," he said. "Positions."
Serena took the far stool, angle open to the audience, hands resting where cameras like hands. The Brand Rep oiled his way to the middle and arranged his water like a personality. The therapist checked her cards and gave me an apologetic smile that did not ask me to save her and did not promise to save me.
I did not sit. I stood at the left edge of the stools where the frame would catch my mouth and not my knees. A small square of the booth's rule sheet lay on the side table, laminated, ugly, perfect.
Rita set it there without flourish. "Context," she said.
"Thirty seconds," the floor manager murmured. Panel B's arch warmed. The audience in the courtyard practiced attention. The tally over the center camera inhaled.
Vivian appeared at the corner of the wing like weather learning manners. She held her phone in a manner that means acceptance arrived or a new plan did. Rita's phone buzzed a short, satisfied sound.
"Aisha," Rita said.
"Inbox," Aisha said. "Addendum accepted. Conditions bound. If someone attempts unannounced intimacy, you say the word consent on air and look at the lens. That's your fire alarm."
"Copy," I said.
The friendly tablet couldn't help itself. It drifted up in a lower corner with its pet face. PROMPT: Ask about marriage. It wore a grin like a logo and believed in its own charm.
"Screenshot," Rita said, without looking, and made one. Boone breathed. The tablet discovered a different altitude it wanted to live at.
Evan and I crossed vectors at the wing, two bodies respecting geometry. He didn't stop. I didn't stop. He said one word, not for the room.
"Clock," he said.
"Paper," I said.
He nodded, and the nod meant both.
The therapist leaned toward me with her hopeful eyes. "Do you think boundaries make love smaller," she whispered, last second, trying to find a sentence that let her do her job humanely.
"They make rooms," I said.
The host's smile caught its cue. He faced the lens and became the thing he's very good at. "Welcome back," he said. "We're talking boundaries and consent with Serena Vale, Halcyon's Ben Pierce, therapist Dr. Adisa, and advisor Maya Quinn."
The center tally warmed to definite. The arch found its brightness. The audience settled into the sound editors like.
"Tonight," the host continued, "we ask a simple question. What does consent look like in publicity."
The Brand Rep opened his mouth like a bottle. I let him pour one sentence about aligning expectations and respecting stakeholders. Dr. Adisa gave her seven-word version about autonomy and informed choice. Serena said, "Consent is choosing what parts of you get rented and when you want them back."
The tablet flinched, then tried again. PROMPT: Ask Maya if she is married.
The floor manager's hand rode low, telling us to keep our breaths interesting. Rita's phone lived near her heart like a heartbeat with a grudge. Boone's shape told the aisle to behave.
I put my fingers on the edge of the laminated rule sheet. It left a line of cold through the tabletop into the soft part of my hand.
"Consent on this show looks like doors you can leave through," I said. "It looks like the difference between a question and a dare. It looks like not using other women's names to sell your story."
The host blinked once and smiled for the camera. "That was almost poetic," he said, unable to help himself.
"It's a checklist," I said.
He laughed because that's safe, and the audience gave us the sound that cuts into approval. The tally kept its red. The tablet held its breath.
The floor manager spun a finger. "Button," he mouthed.
"Button," the host said aloud. "Serena - one sentence you can stand by."
"I won't confuse kindness with access," she said.
"Ben," the host said.
"We'll post every edit window," Ben said, lying amiably.
"Doctor," the host said.
"Consent is not a one-time signature," she said. "It renews."
The host looked at me. "Maya."
I put my hand flat on the rule sheet where the laminate could feel bone. "I advise on rule to avoid harm," I said. "We're not owed truth. We owe each other consent."
The tally blinked, patient and red, and the logo drifted up for a breath like a curtain thinking about itself.
"After the break," the host said, smile intact, "we take a few questions from the floor."
The music came up and did its job. The arch cooled a fraction.
"In two," the floor manager called for the next block.
The friendly tablet couldn't hold still any longer. It lifted its head. PROMPT: Ask about marriage pulsed like an idea that wanted to be law.
Rita's thumb moved. Screenshot. Boone breathed. I moved my hand from the laminate to the empty air over the table where the X would have been if someone had believed in it.
The center tally warmed again. The host lifted a card, then his eyes. He looked at me, not unkind.
I stepped into the space next to the rule sheet, the spot we had marked with paper instead of tape, and gave the line back to the room.
"Go," I said.