Tanaka-san pointed at the box where Ellie should put her clothes.
All
her clothes.
"American girls are very popular in China this season," Tanaka said. He was a short, stocky man, with a large potbelly that he liked to stroke as he talked. He grinned and nodded his head. His English was impeccable.
Elle nodded graciously. She knew he meant the new
television
season in China. Tanaka-san was the producer of the most popular Japanese reality game show in the world-
Winning is Everything
-and the Chinese market was the next big gold rush. All of her Stanford classmates knew these simple facts. The show required each contestant to strip nude and then live by their wits in an apartment with limited supplies. Contestants could only resupply their apartments by winning provisions from online contests.
"To win," Tanaka-san continued, "a girl must be resourceful. Meticulous. Determined." With each word, he tapped his fist into his palm. Elle stifled a yawn. The flight from the States had been long and dull, and she already knew what she needed to do to win.
And she would win.
She had bet big on winning.
She'd dropped out of Stanford for this. She had asked her fiancΓ©e, Markus, to support her as she flew to Tokyo, became a contestant, and fought to become the next big reality TV sensation for the Asian television market. With her background in marketing, Elle felt certain she could parlay her fame into a series of lucrative sponsorships.
"And," Tanaka-san said, holding up a finger and pausing dramatically. "A winning girl must have a nice ass." He chuckled lewdly, rubbing his tummy.
A great wave of unease washed over her, but she chuckled politely. Japanese television men were, as a general rule, incredibly sexist. Tanaka-san was no different.
Tanaka picked up the box and held it out. Waited.
Elle's mouth went dry.
Of course, she had already known about the nudity and the sexism of the show. In her marketing classes, students discussed endlessly the culture of accommodating male desire. She removed her top and stood before Tanaka-san in her bra. Handing him her shirt, she exhaled and felt the tension drain from her shoulders. In the back of her mind, she held onto a vague idea about using male privilege to fight male privilege. But, in reality, her motivation was simpler than all that-Elle wanted to win.
"Oh," Tanaka-san said, a sheepish look on his face. "I almost forgot." He used his phone to turn on a giant television attached to the wall. Elle saw herself, standing in her bra. She understood this was the image of herself that a billion Chinese viewers- mostly men-were seeing. Tanaka-san dutifully explained all the things she already knew. There was an around-the-clock internet audience, but also a studio audience for the weekly show. The voice of the show's host suddenly came from the TV, filling the room. He spoke Japanese, so Elle couldn't understand any of his words, but she understood the cheering of the audience, which soon changed to a rhythmic clapping chant.
Tanaka-san stopped talking and smiled.
Elle felt a small swell of fear mixed with excitement. They wanted her nude. She slipped her pants down her thighs. The broadcast was behind a paywall and only meant for Asian audiences, so her dignity would be preserved-well,
somewhat
preserved. Throughout Asia her respectability would be forever tainted. It would be worth it, Elle had already decided. Her pants went into the box, along with her shoes. Her panties and bra. Her phone, everything.
Elle stood facing Tanaka-san, one arm covering her nipples, a hand over her pubic patch. Her firm ass suddenly appeared on the big screen in front of her.
She peered over her shoulder to find the camera.
There was much cheering.
Her face started to heat up. She watched her cheeks glow red on the screen. Tanaka-san used the camera on his phone to broadcast close-ups of her cleavage. There was an animated overlay on the left side of the screen that provided a visual metaphor of audience response. Right now, it was showing rockets gliding into the air. Elle dropped her arms. The rockets began bursting into colorful star patterns and the crowd roared its approval. Elle grinned. She was glad Markus would never see these images. He would not approve of her using her body this way. Placing her hands on her hips, Elle felt a dirty little thrill as Tanaka-san used his phone to broadcast images of her pubic patch. He gave her the signal and she obediently turned and put her hands on her knees so that he could broadcast images of her most private places. On the left side of the screen, a tiny plant sprouted out of the ground and then soared upwards, expanding in girth and length until it transformed into a thick, sturdy oak.
Elle loved it. She had never used her body quite like this before and it was intoxicating. She quickly grew comfortable with being naked all the time, with having the cameras always on. With an around-the-clock audience.
Soon she even grew accustomed to the loneliness and the isolation.
To deal with the boredom, she masturbated. At first, she did this in the middle of the night in the hopes that only a few people who were awake at that time might see her engaged in such a private act. But then those clips of her masturbating were replayed during the weekly broadcast. A highlight of the coverage was an image of Elle's face twisted into an ugly mask of passion-her sex face. Elle was mortified, but her approval ratings soared. She soon realized she could masturbate to pass the time
and
improve her ratings. One of the fans sent her a vibrator. Another sent her lube. Elle knew these gifts were an aspect of the Asian television market that Markus would never understand. So, she kept them to herself.
Markus chatted with her once a week on the computer. During these video calls, they often masturbated together. Unknown to Markus, these conversations were broadcast live with subtitles, making them ethically tricky for Elle to participate in, but she desperately longed to hear his voice.
On one of their first calls, Markus had whispered: "Can they see this?"
He was sitting halfway across the world, leaning forward into the lens of his laptop, which made his eyes and the bridge of his nose loom comically large across the entire screen.
Elle was panting, her laptop on the floor between her legs. "I... I..." she husked, not wanting to tell an outright lie.
"I would hope not!"
A ripple of noisy laughter came from the TV.
"What was that noise?" Markus asked.