House Rules
You manage to install the software only at midnight because it's only now that you've finished the last of the evening duties. By the time the house is in order it's always this late.
The process is almost suspiciously simple. You plug in the USB, run the installer, follow three steps. It asks for permissions — camera, microphone, network access, content filtering — and you grant them all without reading too carefully because it's midnight and you are very, very tired and Alina said beta test and that was the extent of the information you required.
Done. Both devices.
You sit back and listen. The apartment is quiet. No voices, no movement, no sound from any of the three rooms down the hallway. For the first time all day you are genuinely, probably alone.
You think about your day. About Gabbie's bedroom and Charlotte's bathroom and the massage room and the wet spot that has long since dried but not been forgotten. You think about the fact that you have not had an orgasm in longer than you'd like to admit.
You reopen the laptop you had just closed. You are very tired and the bed is calling. You ignore it.
You figure: now or never.
You type a search. You hit enter.