Page 9 of Shameful Addictions

Charlotte stepped out of her car and hurried into the air-conditioned lobby. A security guard glanced up at her arrival and frowned. “ID?”

“Are you serious? I work here.”

“Either you show me some ID, or you flash them titties,” the guard said, grinning at his own slant rhyme.

His words were like a slap to the face. Charlotte reared her head back and stared at him, memorizing his face so she could report him for harassment. “You…” She sputtered. “You ignorant man.”

The guard kept grinning. “Don’t you know that things have changed around here?”

“I wasn’t aware,” she said haughtily, planting her hands on her hips. She had bigger things to deal with than this little lizard who thought he was a snake. “And I don’t give a damn. You want my ID? Fine. Here.” She reached for her wallet.

The man waved his hand and turned away, going back to the front desk to pick up the magazine he’d been reading before she came in and interrupted him. To her dismay, she saw it was a porn mag. A woman bent over, spreading her ass cheeks for a black man with an anaconda “Whatever,” the guard said. “I don’t have time to waste on you. You’re no threat.”

“You wouldn’t recognize a threat if someone came and pointed a gun at your head!” Charlotte said. “Sitting there like that, looking at those horrible pictures. Your brains have been rotted!”

He shrugged and sat down, kicking up his boots to rest them on the desk. Charlotte hurried past, and heard him pull down his zipper. She didn’t dare look back, not that she needed to know what he was about to do. The receptionists who came in and sat in that chair during the day would never know how filthy their space was, how soiled by the desires of a degenerate male.

Charlotte jabbed the button for the elevator and hopped inside. She spun and slapped the button for her floor. The doors closed and the elevator hummed, vibrating its way up the tower. She staggered back and rested on the wall, head tilted up to stare at the single bright light fixture overhead.

She had CM’s resources at hand. This late at night, she wouldn’t have to deal with anyone else and explain her actions. She should have been feeling better than this. She was still just so shaken by what she’d seen. She felt dirty for having played a part in the debauchery, no matter how small.

I’ll make it right,she told herself.I’ll make up for it.

The elevator doors opened and she stepped out onto her floor, floor 12, affectionately known as the Stage. Every door she passed led to a filming studio, some little bigger than closets, others the size of a television newsroom. All the rooms on the other side of the doors were dark, locked up due to the late hour, the creators all having gone home. However, during the day, the stars, producers, and cameramen would come and capture pure, unadulterated content to send off to teams of editors. The editors would create videos from the raw footage, then send the drafted videos to carefully selected watchers. The watchers watched. That was their whole job. The watchers gave comments and feedback, which a second round of editors applied to the videos before finally sending them off to be uploaded.

The streamlined process ensured CM put out a steady stream of videos, which had them constantly trending. Some of the videos were entire skits and short films written by in-house writers, and others were game shows with high production value.

Some people, like Charlotte, worked by themselves as singular, relatable creators meant to target an extremely specific audience.

Charlotte let herself into her filming studio and turned on the lights. She shut and locked the door behind her. The door was heavy, padded thickly with soundproofing, a similar treatment of which had been given to the walls. All the studios had the same preventions in place to ensure the creators didn’t bother each other. The members of the audience, too, were to be kept in the dark. Damian wanted the world to think that each of the creators were independent, and not all part of this one monolithic organization.

The chubby 32-year-old man in the room next to Charlotte’s played RPGs and recorded the content. His room was made to look like a simple bachelor’s living room, with some cheap lighting and a moderately expensive microphone. An entire backstory had been created for him, a life which other departments in CM had brought to life through social media.

Across the hall, an old woman in baggy clothes made quick, snappy videos, eccentric videos always relating to trendy topics. She was made to seem like a bit of a hermit, lovable and slightly crazy, a bumbling grandmother who didn’t have any real idea how she’d gotten into this video thing. In actuality, she was a retired psychologist who used her skills to craft her scripts and visuals.

It was all a façade. Many clever façades.

Charlotte participated in her own façade so often she felt like an entirely different person while filming. When she entered her studio, the rest of her fell away, leaving behind the concentrated essence of an auntlike figure. A bit old-fashioned, but friendly, endearing, and always wanting what was best for the next generation.

But she didn’t feel like that today. She still felt like herself.

Charlotte stepped deeper into her room and sighed, softly. Her studio had been made to look like a classy unmarried woman’s bedroom. She filmed herself sitting on the big bed, perched on the red duvet with black and white pillows at her back. A nightstand with a quirky-looking black lamp was always in the background of the shot; as the seasons changed, she would set up different decorations there.

Other fixtures in the room were her makeup table, and the chair on the other side of the room where she reviewed books she had read–nearly always self-help books for young adults.

A second door next to the makeup table led to her dressing room, though her viewers believed it to be a connected bathroom.

Charlotte went over to the other door and touched the knob. She jerked her hand back like she’d been shocked. Rubbing her hands together, she paced.

In there, she had appropriate outfits and props to fit the persona she wore. She always touched up her makeup and did her hair in there, and whatever else she needed to do for the day.

If she did that today, if she went along with her routine, viewers might believe this was an ordinary video. Never before had she lied to her impressionable audience.

The reason she was here right now was because she couldn’t bring herself to lie to them, no matter what her boss wanted.

Charlotte turned away from the door, putting her back to it. “It’ll be like when those problematic beauty gurus make apology videos,” she whispered. “And they wear baggy clothes and no makeup. It’ll be a sign something isn’t right.”

It was a good idea.

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