She stood in the center of the room, naked, as if awaiting some unknowable judgment. The object — small, metallic, precise — remained lodged within her, not with pleasure, but with purpose. She had inserted it herself, or perhaps someone else had, long ago, under instructions she never questioned, delivered through bureaucratic whispers and unsigned letters. Now it served as a mark. Not of desire, but of designation. She was no longer a woman, not entirely — she was a file, a case, a unit of study. Her body, once hers, had been subdivided, categorized, and rendered into a subject for unseen clerks. Outside, the corridor ticked with footsteps. Someone was always approaching, but never arriving. She dared not move. The plug, cold as logic, reminded her: she had complied