The vibration against her clit was the only thing in the world that didn't feel like a lie.
Everything else was just noise. The room was a suffocating box of stale air. It smelled of unwashed laundry, the chemical tang of a half-empty Hyper-Glitch energy drink, and the damp, heavy musk of her own arousal.
Blue light from the phone screen washed over the ceiling. It caught dust motes floating in the dark like dead pixels.
Rei Locke lay curled under her heavy covers. Her knees were drawn up to her chest, her free hand gripping the sheet so tight her knuckles turned white. On the screen, a loop of "hypno-goon" content played. A faceless 3D model with exaggerated proportions bounced in a mechanical rhythm.
She wasn't even watching it anymore. She was just staring at the pixels, chasing the chemical hit. Doom-scrolling her own nervous system.
"F-fuck..."
The word was a wet, broken gasp in the silence.
She arched her back, burying her face in the pillow to muffle the sound of her own pathetic need. Her hips stuttered. She ground down against the cheap plastic wand buzzing angrily between her wet labia. It wasn't romantic. It wasn't intimate.
It was routine.
It was a desperate attempt to wring a single drop of serotonin out of a brain that had been rotting in this bedroom for six months. A manual override for her crushing anxiety.
Come on. Just let me finish.
She cranked the dial.
CLICK.
The vibration shifted from a hum to a drill. Her breath hitched, turning into a high-pitched whine. The friction was becoming too much. It bordered on pain, but that was the only way she could feel anything through the numbness of her depression.
The peak hit her hard and fast. A white-hot spike of sensation scrambled her brain.
For three seconds, the world stopped. There was no debt. No disappointed mother working herself to death. No New Kowloon smog outside the door. Just the heat, the slick friction, and the shuddering, full-body release.
Then came the crash.
Rei went limp. The toy slipped from her slick fingers. It buzzed angrily against the mattress before she fumbled to kill the power.
CLICK.
Silence rushed back in. It was louder than before. Post-nut clarity washed over her, not as relief, but as a cold, sticky layer of shame. She lay there, panting, feeling the sweat cooling on her skin. Her thighs stuck together.
She felt gross. Used up. A disposable object.
Great, she thought, staring at a water stain on the ceiling that looked like a judgmental face. Another victory for Rei Locke. Put that on my tombstone. "Here lies Rei. She came, she saw, she hid under a blanket."
The phone screen dimmed. It stared back at her. In the black reflection, she saw a ghost. Pale skin. Dark circles under her eyes like bruises. Hair matted to her forehead with sweat.
A gremlin. A level 1 NPC.
BUZZ.
The notification made her flinch. It wasn't a text. It wasn't an email. It was a black pop-up box with neon pink text overlaying her home screen like a malware attack.
[ SYSTEM DETECTED: DISTRESSED ASSET ]
[ SCANNING BIOMETRICS... ]
"What the hell?" Rei sat up, wiping her hand on the sheet. "I have an ad-blocker."
She tapped the 'Home' button. Nothing. She tried to lock the screen. Frozen. The phone was getting hot. Uncomfortably hot against her palm.
[ BIOMETRICS CONFIRMED: LOCKE, REI. ]
[ CLASS: HIDDEN SUCCUBUS (DORMANT) ]
[ STATUS: ROTTING ]
"Hey, fuck you," she hissed. Panic pricked at her chest like static electricity. "I'm not rotting, I'm resting. It's strategy!"
She thumbed the power button frantically. "Turn off. Turn off!"
The air pressure in the room dropped. Her ears popped.
The shadows in the corner of the room, the ones by the pile of unopened mail and dirty laundry, seemed to thicken. They stopped looking like shadows and started looking like ink bleeding into reality.
A smell hit her. Sharp. Invasive.
It smelled like burnt copper and expensive, chemically-perfect lavender. It was the scent of a motherboard frying inside a high-end flower shop.
[ INSTALLING L.U.S.T. OS (v6.9)... ]
[ PLEASE HOLD FOR YOUR ACCOUNT MANAGER. ]
The phone stopped strobing.
The room went pitch black.
Rei pressed herself back against the wall. She clutched the blankets to her bare chest, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird.
"Hello?" she whispered.
A soft chime echoed. It didn't come from the phone. It came from inside her head.
Then the darkness in the corner peeled open. A silhouette stepped out.
She was tall. Impossibly tall. And she wasn't human.
Her skin was a deep, polished crimson, like liquid ruby. She wore a charcoal pencil skirt that fit so tight it looked painted on, and a silk blouse that cost more than Rei's entire life. Small, sharp obsidian horns poked through a severe, glossy black bob cut.
But it was the eyes that froze Rei's blood. Glowing, predatory violet.
Rei scrambled backward. Her heels caught in the tangled mess of her sticky sheets. She felt like a cockroach when the kitchen lights flicked on.
Perfect, she thought violently. I'm about to be murdered by a sexy demon secretary while sitting in my own filth with a vibrator next to my knee. This is peak me.
The demon looked around the room. Her nose wrinkled as she nudged a pile of dirty laundry with the tip of a stiletto heel. A black, spade-tipped tail flicked into view behind her, swishing with irritation.
"Pathetic," the woman murmured.
Her voice was smooth, commanding, and dropped the temperature in the room by ten degrees.
"I've seen better living conditions in a goblin nest."
She turned those violet eyes on Rei. Rei froze. It was instinct. The sudden, lizard-brain urge to roll over and show her belly.
"W-who are you?" Rei squeaked. Her voice cracked. Smooth, Rei. Really selling the 'tough guy' act.
The woman stepped closer. She invaded Rei's personal space until the heat radiating from her red skin felt like an open oven door. She tapped a holographic tablet that materialized in her hand.
"Posture," the woman snapped.
Rei straightened her spine before she even realized she was doing it.
"I am Nyx," the woman said, looking down her nose at Rei. "Your Senior Account Manager for the Gilded Lotus Group. And looking at these metrics..."
Nyx reached out. Her hand, cool and manicured with sharp red nails, grabbed Rei's chin. She forced Rei to look up.
"You are a distressed asset in desperate need of a firmware update."
Nyx smiled. It wasn't friendly. It was the smile a wolf gives a sheep before tearing its throat out.
"Your mother's debt has matured, Rei Locke. Five hundred thousand credits. And since she can't pay..." Nyx's eyes drifted down. She scanned Rei's naked shoulders, the curve of her breasts under the sheet, the sweat slicking her collarbone. "We are repossessing the collateral. Which appears to be... you."
"Me?" Rei whispered. "I'm... I'm just a NEET. I don't work. I don't have any money."
"No," Nyx purred, stepping between Rei's legs. The proximity was overwhelming. "But you have a libido that could power a city block. You're practically vibrating with repressed filth."
Nyx raised a finger and tapped the air. A window expanded in front of Rei's face.
[ CONTRACT OFFER: L.U.S.T. SYSTEM ]
[ TERMS: INSTALL SYSTEM. GENERATE 'THIRST'. PAY DEBT. ]
[ WARNING: HIGH RISK / HIGH YIELD ]
"You're a shut-in, Rei. You hide because you feel too much. You're sensitive to texture, to gaze, to heat. In the human world, that's a disorder."
Nyx leaned down. Her lips brushed Rei's ear.
"In my world? That's a superpower. That's a high-end build waiting for a player who knows how to use it."
Rei looked at the contract. She looked at the debt counter. 500,000.
She thought of her mom coming home with swollen feet, working double shifts at the cannery.
Rei looked down at her hands. They were shaking. Not just from fear. From adrenaline.
"So..." Rei swallowed hard. "I just... play the game? I use this... System?"
"You use your nature," Nyx corrected. "You stop hiding the rot and start selling it. Do we have a deal, Asset?"
Rei took a deep breath. The air tasted like ozone and opportunity. She reached out and pressed the holographic button.
[ ACCEPT ]
[ SYSTEM ALERT: INSTALLATION COMPLETE. ]
A jolt of electricity arced through Rei's spine. It wasn't pain. It was... stimulation. Every nerve ending in her body lit up.
The friction of the bed covers against her nipples suddenly felt like sandpaper. The humid air of New Kowloon felt heavy, pressing against her skin like wet silk.
Her breath hitched. A flush crawled up her neck, hot and sticky.
[ HUD ACTIVATED ]
[ CURRENT HEAT: 15% ]
"Oh, look at that," Nyx whispered, her tail curling with amusement. "Fifteen percent just from eye contact. You really are a dirty degenerate, aren't you?"
"I... I can't..." Rei gasped, gripping the sheets. Her body was betraying her.
She was terrified, but her hips gave a small, involuntary jerk. She was wet again. Immediately. Fuck.
"Get used to the lag, darling," Nyx said, straightening up and smoothing her skirt. "That sensation? That's your new mana bar. It's called Heat. You generate it by being what you are. A slut for the System."
Nyx leaned down, her lips brushing Rei's ear, her gold-violet eyes flashing.
"Welcome to the L.U.S.T. Interface. We have a lot of grinding to do. Try not to Overheat on the first level. It makes the paperwork terribly sticky."