WIP (The Five Senses)

  

Kit touching chin, Kit thinking. —“Anthos Tansoko?” Action potential, chemo-electric charge courses myelinated length of axon. Polarity reverses, gates open, calcium ions enter. Particles of neurotransmitter released into synaptic gap. Across the gap particles absorbed into dendritic catches, neighbor neuron receiving message. Take that and multiply by millions. Event horizon of a thought formulating, details branching from a factoid recalled. Anthos Tansoko. Name familiar, aural character of specific vowels and consonants in particular order. 
There. Left prefrontal cortex in conversation, a name and its branching affiliates, numbers, dates, episodic details. 
Rolz watches her, the change slight. Moment he has gotten in habit of tracking; when he challenges her with a name to see what she’ll call back from memory, lifetime of categorization and training. Usually first flush, stumped, muscles in her face stiffen tight. She’ll lower eyes. Hold herself still, waiting to receive transmission. Sometimes a hand raised as if saying “wait”. Understood he should keep quiet, no movements, don’t interrupt the process. Given seconds or at most a minute, rarity a few minutes, The Change will come over her. Dubbed it The Change because effects are many and simultaneous, cascade of relieving micro-expressions and mini-moves; everything relaxes in a snap, an ease that doubles as excitement. Could be mistaken as relief to an eye that didn’t know her; but he was the husband; he was versed in the esoteric, elaborate, varied vocabulary of her; her repertoire of gestures and unconscious disclosures. She had never not found her answer, thorough as her knowledge was. 
“Anthos Tansoko. Born 2066. Age thirty-eight, retired. Original screen name Rod Wriggles. First vid in ’84, last vid two years ago. Three hundred forty-two vids and films total.”
Rolz edged back in his chair, hands behind head, basking in data. Kit was moving again, fluid, working the air between them with active hands. This was her post-Change mien, upbeat and expressive.
“Born Cephalonia, Ionian Islands. Mother Grecian, father Japanese-Italian. Family moved to Athens in ’73. Current residence L.A., Studio City. Length full flush eight inches point-three-two centimeters. Girth full flush five inches point-three-six centimeters. Notable vids/films, order of release. Lana Cherry’s Vacation. Big Elvis. Thirty-On-Two. Russian MILFs Versus Wriggles. Most films not featured performer. More in supporting roles. One industry award in his career, second year in the profession, Best Newcomer Performance: Best C*mshot (Eight Yellow Bikinis).”
Screen was open on the countertop, angled so Rolz could scan and track for info while Kit recited errant facts about Tansoko. He’d searched under W’s, scrolled two finger-swipes and stopped randomly at Wriggles. Clicked the name and his profile opened on separate window. There were hundreds of thousands in the data log, available by search. With Raniver’s help she’d designed this, a living document. Not for public use but strictly an in-house reference tool for recruiters and production team members at EVOS. Research and Design engineers made use of it as well, when needed. It was a respected position, Content Historian, really one of a half-dozen jobs in the industry available for someone with her training. She lived by data, regarded it from a different angle than most of her cohort; the human element; the person who lived outside their films for a time so they might sign on to produce another one. 
“Halfway through his career he got a tattoo on the inside of his left wrist. I remember searching through early vids, tracking when it might’ve made a first appearance. In vid number one-sixty-four, Pay The Boss (Tiala Vargas’ Revenge). Third scene he walks in, joins Frank Hardman on a cream off-white leather couch, Tiala between them. Lifts a hand to brush hair off Tiala’s forehead and there, noticeable. Had to pause to get a close look. Blue and white cross and stripes, the Grecian flag.”
This was Kit’s brain, a wetware compendium of lives. Never had she come back blank when he’d thrown a name at her. 
“Is there a skin for him?” 
Kit took her panta-bowl from the counter where it’d been cooling. Steamy spice noodles chopstick to mouth. “Of course. There’s a skin for everyone. Hadn’t been ten years ago, when he was mid-career, but industry contracts changed. Performers’ union negotiated that; caught in legal proceedings before he was even born. One of the fortunate ones; pay structure put in place while he still could command a price and get steady jobs. Got a percentage of each VR interface while he was also putting out fresh content. Percentages are small but in retirement that’s a reliable income stream.”
“Never heard of him though. How would anyone know to look for him?”
“Everyone’s got their fans. Sure his hits on the search algorithm help. ‘Greek dick’. “Japanese-Italian Grecian dick.’”
Rolz laughed into his noodles, panta-bowl lifted to catch what slipped from chewing mouth. 
“Even the little guys can make a living.” 
Kit’s turn laughing. She wasn’t above a good dick-pun; wasn’t above a half-baked one either, clearly. 
Rolz pushed the screen, angled it so both could see. Her handiwork, years in the making and continually self-replenishing with content. She and Raniver project leads. Raniver called it The Body Log, which Kit hated; told him so; stopped telling him, since the more she admonished and corrected him, more he referred to it as such. Official company term, one used in corporate documents and correspondence, The Register. But Kit knew Rolz spread his version through small-talk out of petty playful sadism. It hurt no one to call it The Body Log but offended Kit’s high-minded sex-positive fealty to people who fucked for money (Raniver’s words). 
Everyone was in The Register. No appearance too brief, no role too minor. If they’d undressed before a camera then rolled around with a few other people or pleasured themselves solo, it would be integrated into the EVOS library, material to be drawn from for interactive VR interface. Have sex with a classic, say, Linda Lovelace, Autumn Sweet, John Holmes? Search, select desired variables—Setting, Scenario, Toys, Kinks—run program. Raniver had devised the technology, Kit curated content. Initially started small, the two of them; soon whole departments grew under them. Kit was happy for that; meant less and less they had occasion to interact directly. 
Rolz didn’t mind Ran. There was a guy thing at play whenever they took a corner and talked at parties. Rolz had the luxury of not working with him, so in small doses and limited to harmless passing topics his straight-talk might scan as charming. Rolz always validated her misgivings, admitted it’d be difficult to weather such needlings on a daily basis, but she felt the validations weren’t entirely sincere. She long had suspicions Rolz actually liked him. 
“Where’s he live?” 
“What? Who.”
“Anthos Tansoko. Rod Wriggles is retired; but where’s Anthos Tansoko?”
He did this sometimes. Tested extent of Kit’s knowledge of her people post-career. 
Panta-bowl returned to countertop, chopsticks paused in finger origami. While she thought—chemo-electric charge, axon, polarity reversed, calcium ions, synaptic gap, neurotransmitters released—the chopsticks worked open-closed, open-closed, tip to tip, like a beak, unconscious hand-language of her thinking. 
There again. Called into explicit awareness from scattered reaches of white and gray matter. 
“He lives in Miami, Florida, a condo. And has a second home in Mykonos, ancestral property bought back into the fold and renovated with a mix of family inheritance and interface revenue post-career.” 
This could have been improvised fabrication but how would he know? If not true, it sounded credible. A happy ending of sorts for Anthos Tansoko if not for Rod Wriggles.
A happy ending he said, punning again.
A nod from Kit this time, laugh off elsewhere, still pending. She was in thought again, subtle moves across face told him so. Her eyes were on the screen; one click, inventory of three-hundred-something vids, complete recorded life of Anthos as Wriggles. Pensive is the mind before the product of its creations, Rolz thought. He’d said it before in her company. From the sour look she gave, knew best not to phrase it that way again. Too close to ambivalent regret to be carefree funny.
She was preoccupied, nervous. She’d been elsewhere in her worries the whole weekend. It was part of a well-established marital rhythm, Rolz taking note of Kit’s jumpiness, asking why, getting rebuffed before changing tack and pulling her into low-stakes challenges involving trivia. She’d catch on usually after she’d gained some relief from distraction. 
Next morning she was scheduled to meet with Raniver and Polk and other department leads, no explicit topic of discussion listed in the invite. It’d been four years since EVOS department leads had shared an actual room, sat across from one another; the company switched to remote meetings exclusively after Polk had moved to the New York office; the departments had grown self-sufficient as they’d expanded over time; proof of point being Raniver and Kit rarely had occasion to take in-person meetings either. The departments drew on their expertise and managerial vision but over the past few years there was the sense departments had reached a point where they could run themselves. Consider it the upside to widespread systemic automation; executives and managers could relax at a certain point and follow the lead of their creations. 
Kit didn’t care for meetings, would leave them feeling used, second-rate, not taken seriously. It wasn’t anything anyone said, not Polk or Martingdale or Vishwanathan or Solveig Leach or even Raniver; it was how conversations tended to pass over her, keep her on the furthest edges of common involvement, left her feeling diminished. An hour could pass without anyone asking her for input. Most questions involving product interface were directed at Raniver, who had the technical knowledge to speak to issues concerning interface. Something was up, Kit would complain to Rolz afterwards over dinner, if the world’s largest interactive porn distributor could hold an hourlong meeting without one mention of the performers whose likenesses it was replicating and selling. 
Rolz could see both sides but kept that to himself. She would’ve drawn and quartered him in a quick second; he learned as much from past mistakes; speaking up, modeling impartiality when what was expected of him was to simply listen. This was business; competition drove marketing and product development; they could’ve been selling dog shampoo or latex paint and the principles at play would have been the same. Remember? he’d asked her once, years ago, during one of their earliest versions of this same conversation. Remember what you said to me back when you decided to take the job? Why not? The technology would get developed with or without me. Might as well sign on and see if I can’t influence things from the inside, make sure if this kind of thing's done, it’s done right. That was before VR porn mushroomed into a multi-trillion-dollar industry, EVOS at the forefront of that growth, pushing it forward. Kit's shares alone over the past four years had secured their retirement for ten lifetimes or more. They could buy an island; moreover, could pay for retirement of all inhabitants. During one such conversation—Kit caught back-and-forth in issues of ethical self-torture, Rolz piping in with short hits of pragmatism—he’d jokingly suggested she buy an island and make it a luxury retirement community for adult entertainers past their prime. She’d paused; it wasn’t pretend pause, for effect; she was thinking, actually considering. Thereafter mention of an island was de rigeur at some point during such conversations.
“They pay you to be in the room.” This was usually something Rolz would say during such conversations, and he said it again now. Kit grabbed his empty panta-bowl from the counter and stacked it into her own, huffed as she set them in the touch-wash, closed the verti-glass case and tapped “steam”. Flash-wash, ultra-hot steam churning behind octagonal glass. Five seconds, clean. She opened the glass panel, handled the bowls barehanded, wincing; usually would wrap hand in a towel or leave the panel open until dishes cooled. Flesh in fricassee, barehanding hot bowls, Kit looked to him with firm glare. “You could say the same about people we digitally clone. Porn people in general. ‘We pay you to be in the room.’” 
“Whoa now,” Rolz said, both hands raised palms-out, as if taking hands away from touching something that might implicate him. “I’m on your side, remember.” She had her back to him, stacking bowls in automated cabinet. Bowl clicked into catch, catch retracting and filing bowl into kitchenware inventory. They were nearing the end of the usual course of such conversations; Rolz would mention possibility of leaving EVOS; they had enough money; could live comfortably until they croaked and even beyond; was it worth the ugly patches, insults to self-confidence, lack of sleep, recurrent and irresolvable frustrations? Rolz would lay out the terms of a possible future, one uncomplicated and sensible, and Kit would arrive at the same conclusion she always did; whoever they’d replace her with might not be trustworthy, invested enough in the well-being and livelihood of performers EVOS contracted for content creation. "Content Historian" might merely be a job title for them, not a position requiring a certain measure of ethical vigilance; that people be properly compensated for use of their repertoire of performances and above all for their bodies. 
Rolz brushed phantom noodle-flecks from his lap, pushed stool away and stood. He kissed his wife’s worrying cheek and said he was heading for bed. She’ll been staying up, he knew; scrolling through The Registry, “nerve-scrolling” he called it; self-distracting work-adjacent activity; each profile a reminder there was a face, a life, a person behind the body and each body in very private ways extending beyond measurable dimensions recorded in The Register, “The Body Log.” Raniver would be sitting next to her the following morning. They’d shake hands, perform civility and talk as a team; questions asked of their team would default to him for an answer. Ask them anything about anyone in the content library—actress, actor, their films, their contract history—Raniver would have to turn to her, room would tilt her direction, and confidence would lift her above them and with ease she’d begin talking. But given experience, that was not what would happen tomorrow. The usual would happen. She’d take a seat, listen to talk circulate the room for an hour or two, then stand, shake hands with everyone, then with her best professional game-face, walk length of the conference room to the door and leave.

                  *

The meeting began at nine, executive conference room on the fifth floor. Kit arrived early to visit her office; opened the door to find everything—chairs, desk, black-and-white art photos printed on canvas and hung (closeups of nudes male and female and in-between)—pristine, violently clean. The blinds weren’t drawn; wall-length window faced east, post-sunrise radiation screaming at her. She flipped her sunglasses off her forehead to spare her eyes while rifling the desk drawers for the remote control. Control found, blinds closed, blending like scales to a dark metal sheen. She tapped the desktop to manifest the holo-screen. Lime green graphics floating before her, eye identification and verbal confirmation. 
She checked her mail. Several secured messages from the AI scheduler, executive team assistants. Automatic meeting reminder included agenda items in bullet points, each info-bit whittled to suggestive minimalism. Department Restructure. Upgrades. Product Development Initiatives. Which of these involved her? When it was time to leave for upstairs, she left her valise in the chair, chair pushed under desk for safe hiding. 
The scene at the conference room was standard, table longer than necessary, wide enough to prevent lean-over handshakes. Vishwanathan sat right of Polk, Polk right of Blakely; across from them sat Martingdale and Raniver and herself and at the far end between both, Solveig Leach. First meeting after the Board appointed her CEO, Solveig had invited Kit to address her in the familiar; Kit was Kit, why should it be any different for Solveig? This was an informality not extended to other members of the executive team. Kit was unsure this spoke well to her situation. Did friendliness suggest she was harmless, expendable, a pet subordinate good for a chat and not much else? Paranoia in ascendance, Rolz would tell her; best keep that in check; ever consider she might be relieved to have another lady in the room, given the norms in the industry? Solveig Leach couldn’t have been unaware of the in-house read on her appointment, a branding hire, female face for a primarily male-centric customer base. She’d run two tech firms for fifty straight three-percent-or-plus quarterly increases; she commanded a certain consideration. The other leads in the room had hired on in the earlier stages of EVOS's formation and had gained knowledge of the company’s operations through interdepartmental and cross-departmental promotions. Some, such as Vishwanathan, had actually written code for some of the program’s earliest iterations. Raniver and Polk had been collaborating on engineering platform interface before there’d ever been a platform; every upgrade, every morphological mutation of the program over the past decade had emerged from Raniver and Polk and their (Raniver’s words) “porn drones”. Over the past eight years manual coding had been replaced by AI coding programs, but even in the early years very little manual coding was required. Raniver was big on cutting out possibility of human error. “Only fuck-ups I want in the mix are users,” he’d say, his condescension mantra. Kit, he knew, harbored feelings of abstract affinity for EVOS clientele. “Your lonely, your horny, your shut-in losers,” he’d say as she described to him the human terms of this service they offered. Raniver lived alone, she knew. He’d built a very large estate around the aloneness; but never once had she been able to check past his defenses to spy hints of actual loneliness. He lived for work, like most of them did. He was surrounded by people and for all she knew coworkers and subordinates were for him surrogate family. 
“Morning, all,” Solveig smiled, the smile slight enough it doubled as pokerface. “Thanks for indulging this little change of protocol. Things have been moving quickly of late and given the first topic on the agenda today—restructuring—I thought it best we discuss these upcoming changes in person.”
Solveig’s assistant sat in the corner to her left, initiated with finger-swipes on a lap console the conference table’s holo-screen. Three dimensional manifest of the agenda appeared two feet above center of the tabletop between them. 
“A lot to cover today, so let’s begin with the big items of business.” The biggest change, one Solveig began describing, was common knowledge about the room; but here, her describing it, working through the details, made it official. Given rapid growth over past three quarters, there was need for restructuring and expansion of the financial division; over the next few weeks Martingdale would transition into a new role as coordinator. Three assistant leads who’d worked under him previously—Caleb Gray, Robert Mesfrin, and Alex Qi—would be promoted to department heads operating under Martingdale. 
Images of Gray, Mesfrin, and Qi’s profile photos appeared on screen, three times usual scale. Kit recognized none of them. They looked like variations of the same person, middle-aged and upwardly mobile, efficient and cocksure and smiling. No, she said, not moving her head but mentally shaking it in disapproval; that move’s pure Raniver. She was bothered how easily it came to her, reducing people into caricature for purposes of dismissing them. “You can think it,” Rolz would often say, “You can think it but don’t say it.” She’d counter with the simple observation that thinking-but-not-saying was a lot of work. Besides, what was it about people, that they so often conflated judgment with discernment, herself included? Almost as if they had to dismiss someone out of hand in order to protect themselves from contamination by association. Whatever it was, here she was again, doing it. 
        When she came back into the room and conversation around her, Solveig answering questions and the rest asking, they were onto other topics, none of which even tangentially concerned her. She kept still and turned to watch the faces talking. This was something she’d become skillful at, presenting a professional manner while half-absent, agreeable human furniture. Silence she knew could often be mistaken for careful discernment. Hard to judge someone who withdraws from discussion, content to observe. 
“Raniver and Polk…” Mention of Raniver startled her, pulled attention back effortless to selective sharp focus. If there was mention of Raniver, increased chances eyes would turn her way, her manner while he spoke scrutinized for some shape of disapproval or hesitation. Polk, head of R&D, was speaking; describing the outcome of an initial meeting with Raniver regarding a new set of VR interfaces slated for development with EVOS’s fetish imprint Relish. The project’s working title would be The Five Senses and currently it was uncertain whether such a simulation platform would be possible with current interface technology. Polk said Raniver had stated in their meeting he believed, given time and resources, it was doable. All faces in the room turned from Polk to Raniver and it was as if he’d been biding time, waiting for his beat; holding one hand over the other on tabletop before him, he looked from face to face then returning to Polk said with affable resolute certainty, “It’s doable.” Two words, two the whole meeting, but more than Kit had occasion to offer. 
The details of the project, Polk said, didn’t warrant description just yet. But if the project could be seen through development and could be launched within the year or the next, it would truly break new ground for them. It might stimulate an unforeseen need in their client base, or at least that was the ambition. It would nurture novel inclinations in users and with that, establish an un-replicable niche stream of income. None of their competition—FLESHBAY, TOOBY—had anything comparable or anything even close to comparable on the horizon. 
Next step, Polk told the table, would be for Raniver and Kit Embling to get together and hash out variables, work the foundational elements. Once there was a structure to work with, content source material, Raniver and Polk could move forward, coordinate their teams to design the platform and test it. Raniver would brief Kit on the details, she’d be the first to get started.

*

It wasn’t intentional, Raniver said, wasn’t meant as a slight; this was how projects usually developed, wasn't it, since the company grew from a one-floor office to six buildings in four different countries; he hoped she didn’t attribute it to hierarchical aggression. This was Raniver, his tack and technique, presenting in the hypothetical the undermining strategies he often wove around a person, denying responsibility for the intended outcome. He’d offered to meet in her office; she’d steered them in the direction of his instead. It was closer, on the way, one floor below the conference room. Yes, she was free to talk; had a lunch appointment but would push it back a couple of hours. This wasn’t the case but she didn’t want to appear too available. Raniver was usually busy in six different directions yet never called attention to the fact. His busyness overflowed beyond the bounds of his person, filled the daytime and often evening hours of two dozen departmental staffers. The busyness of a Raniver weekend tended to spill over into the weekends of QC worker bees and go-fers. 
Raniver’s office was hyper-crisp, ostentatiously minimal. The wall opposite his desk reflected sunlight through the window, a wall-length plasma screen, old technology but one he favored when viewing test feeds of applications before signing off on them to go live. He passed desk and chair and led her to a pair of Koomi chairs by the window. He took a seat, gestured her to join him. Was this the same office he’d had before? It’d been that long since they’d met in person and longer since they’d sat together in an office, almost never his. Regimented as Raniver was in his habits, he might have moved offices a half-dozen times since their last meeting but the change wouldn't have been unnoticeable, insistent as he'd been that decor be replicated exactly, adjusted to ever larger scales. 
Over his shoulder she noted titles of books lining a levitation case along the wall. The books floated mid-air, shelved and stacked in densified transparent gravity packets. To the uninformed observer, pulling one off its shelf would be akin to selecting one of many books floating support-less above the floor. First title Kit recognized was her own book, rare vanity hard copy; her first and only, Starlets & Studs: A Complete Reference Guide to Adult Entertainment Performers. Status objects, books, and this one at least, Kit knew, had been printed and bound by special request from Raniver. Had it been placed there for intended effect? Everything included between its covers could be found in The Register, available for search and cross-reference. Raniver was no bibliophile; most likely his assistant had provided the books as decoration; something to demonstrate the novel technical features of the levitation case.
“The book? How could I not,” he said, as if he’d been waiting for her to catch sight of the title on the spine. “Curious whether you’d recognize it.” 
It had taken her a second, she admitted. She owned only one copy herself, had assumed that was the extent of its worldly existence in hard copy. 
“I had Reyna order one,” he said. Reyna his assistant; confirmation Kit’s guess was correct. “First brick laid toward the foundation of this thing, the company. Call me sentimental. ”

Kit didn’t respond to that one way or the other. Raniver was anything but. 
“We wouldn’t be sitting here if you hadn’t written it.” 
Kit smiled and lifted a hand, pushed away the compliment. The compliment didn’t return to sender, instead drifted back halfway between them and faded. 
It was true though in a way.  Years of doggerel college-carrel research had led to publication of a book and the book had gained her a reputation, and it was this reputation that brought her to the attention of Enslow and Raniver, EVOS’s two earliest hires. They’d been bothering the edges of the adult industry looking for a specialist of sorts, someone with extensive insider knowledge; there they found Kit, self-styled historian of the porn-iverse without gainful employment, esteemed by high-brow dilettantes slumming in sex work but unregarded among actual players in the industry. They took a meeting with her and described a need for her expertise. They perceived remunerable value in what she did, what she knew. Would she consider working with them? She feigned a pause of consideration before accepting the offer. Even before they'd become acquainted with her mannerisms, her reliable tells, they'd noticed her face widen, eager and flattered, knew they had a taker. That was over a dozen years ago. Everyone was rich now and short on nostalgia. The next project was always their concern.
“Apologies for the sudden invite, the surprise briefing at the meeting,” Raniver said. “Polk requested we keep preliminary discussions confidential. He’s sensitive about the chances of new projects under development after Winglay.” 
Winglay had been an application EVOS had targeted for launch the previous year. Early stages of development there’d been a leak; design specs had been sold to one of their competitors, which in turn had been leaked to the others. By the time Winglay had been launched prospective first quarter profits had been cut to a fifth their initial projection. The fact Kit was only now being briefed on the project suggested she’d been under suspicion, along with who-knows-how-many. Raniver was unbothered by corporate intrigue, Polk more proprietary about projects under development. A certain degree of thievery and bush-league product-copy was inevitable, Raniver believed, and experience had convinced Kit the same as well. 
“What’s the pitch?”
“The pitch’s simple. How to work the programming, the hard part.”
“The Five Senses.” 
“The Five Senses, right. One of Polk’s concept people came up with that. So the product concept is this. They want a VR interface with five sub-applications, each focused on modification of the user experience. Each would involve impairment of primary sensory inputs—vision, hearing, touch, taste, smell. That sounds simpler than it is because they would like the program to subtly heighten functioning of other sensory inputs in conjunction with one input’s impairment. So if hearing is impaired, touch and smell are heightened.”
“That’d be hard to calibrate?”
“Very.” 
“What’s the prospective target for launch?”
“Six months. Not enough time to develop and test. They’re thinking we’ll only have five applications to design but really, given the different permutations of interplay involved, it’s much more than that.”
The last project requiring close coordination between Kit and Raniver involved adjustment programming. Kit thought maybe this would be similar? Unfortunately no, not even close, Raniver said. That involved developing users’ ability to adjust dimensions of actors and actresses bodies during interface; tap a breast, an ass, a c*ck, adjust size with light pinch-finger-swipes. For that project coding didn’t require remodeling of actual means of interface. This would be different, would pull them into an order of complexity they hadn’t tangled with before. 
That was nothing Kit needed to concern herself with though. That was Raniver’s job, to fashion the software. 
What they needed from Kit was a content model around which to build the program. Should be interesting work, something new for her. Raniver’s people had conducted a search of The Register for potential candidates to serve as reference points—performers who were sensorily impaired one way or another—but it’s not like they could merely copy and repurpose their subjective experiences through computational modeling. With most performers in their library they could data mine image and voice from their complete oeuvre of videos and set AI design programs to work creating 3-D interactive digital avatars for customer interface. They’d streamlined that process to the point where, once they had a performer’s videos on file, the AI programs pretty much created an avatar without prompting and stocked it for approval for launch. This was different, way more tricky. They would have to approximate the experience of performers with specific sensory impairments, in hundreds of different combinations of sex acts and scenarios and positions. How did, say, a blind actress with D-cup breasts experience a light fingering in a lukewarm shower? How did a deaf actor respond to the sensation of sharp slaps to c*ck and asscheek while standing freshly undressed in a Victoria-era ballroom? This would require a great deal of foundational research on Kit’s part. 
“In what way?” 
“There’s no other way around it, unless you can think of something otherwise. Interviews. Gather self-report qualitative data as basis for approximative projection of design. Subjective qualities of interface have to start from there, as I see it. So I ask you, any candidates come to mind? Anyone you think who still has their wits about them, relatively articulate? We only need five though I suppose more would do.”