Omar brought two coffees because Cassidy had told him to. He repeated that reason to himself while he climbed the stairs with the cardboard carrier balanced in one hand and his tool bag in the other, and again when she opened the door barefoot, hair loose and badly tangled, wearing an oversized gray T-shirt and the same tiny yellow thong he remembered far too well. The swelling from the day before had gone down. That did not make the thong generous.

Dark curls still escaped above the waistband and around the high-cut sides, and the narrow fabric disappeared between her cheeks when she turned away from him. Omar looked at her face when she looked back.

"Coffee," he said.

Cassidy's whole expression brightened.

"Oh, thank god."

She took one cup immediately and inhaled over the lid.

"You actually remembered."

"You specifically told me to."

"People ignore instructions all the time."

"Usually the part where I say don't use the sink."

She laughed and stepped aside. The apartment smelled familiar now. Not familiar enough to stop affecting him. Coffee joined the usual layers: laundry, food, warm fabric, old sex, skin, the bodily musk Cassidy apparently considered part of the furniture. The mildew was much weaker with the cabinet drying out. Omar noticed that automatically and was absurdly pleased by it.

"Sink still dry?" he asked.

"I checked this morning."

"Good."

"Twice."

"Better."

Cassidy pointed down the hall with her coffee.

"Come meet the closet from hell."

Her bedroom was worse than the living room. Not exactly dirtier—denser. A mattress on a low frame with half the sheet pulled loose. A pillow on the floor. One dresser drawer open far enough that bras and underwear spilled over the edge. Clothes started near the closet and migrated toward the bed in no pattern Omar could identify. A full-length mirror leaned against the wall instead of being mounted, its bottom propped on two books and one folded towel. Filming equipment occupied the cleaner corner. Tripod. Ring light. Small softbox. Phone clamp. Charging cables.

On the floor near the dresser sat a plain cardboard shipping box with German printing on one side. Omar knew immediately what that had to be. He did not look at it long enough to read anything. The closet deserved his attention first. It was a sliding bypass door, hollow-core and light enough that Cassidy had apparently been lifting and bullying it back into place whenever it misbehaved. The upper guide channel still held both panels, but the left panel hung crooked. One lower roller sat lower than the other, forcing the edge into the carpet. A shallow groove in the pile showed how long the problem had been there.

Cassidy drank her coffee behind him.

"See? Door thing."

"Mostly."

She made a pleased sound.

"You remembered."

Omar crouched. He pushed the panel sideways. It moved three inches, shuddered, and stopped.

"Don't stand under it while I take it out."

"Bossy."

"It's hanging wrong."

"Fine."

Cassidy climbed onto the edge of the bed and sat cross-legged with the coffee between both hands. Omar lifted the panel enough to unload the lower rollers, tipped the bottom toward himself, and guided the door free of the upper channel. Light. Awkward. He laid it flat on a clear strip of carpet. Or what had looked clear. With the panel out of the way, one side of the closet finally opened far enough to show a plastic basket of larger toys, bottles, and folded towels tucked behind the hanging clothes. Something purple-black and heavily textured rolled out from beneath a drift of clothing near the track. Omar froze for half a beat. Cassidy looked down.

"Oh."

The dragon. Not a similar one. The same enormous fantasy toy he had seen on her creator page the night before. Thick, ridged, exaggerated enough that even knowing what it was did not make the physical object look reasonable. Its broad base had been wedged partly against the lower track.

Around the base, the aluminum channel and nearby carpet were matted with old dried residue, cloudy and yellowed at the thinnest edges. Lube, bodily fluid, whatever mixture had been left after the session had dried into a tacky film and collected hair, lint, and carpet fibers until the roller channel looked varnished with bad decisions. Omar stared at it. Cassidy followed his gaze.

"Yeah."

"You knew that was there?"

"I knew the dragon was somewhere."

"That's not the same thing."

"It is if you're me."

Omar looked at her. She was smiling into her coffee.

"Can you move it?"

"Absolutely."

She hopped off the bed, picked the toy up by its base without hesitation, inspected the dried mess on one side, and grimaced.

"Okay. That's worse than I remembered."

"How long ago?"

Cassidy thought.

"Month? Maybe. It was after a long custom. I put the dragon down, got distracted, and apparently decided future me could deal with it."

Omar looked at the carpet groove.

"Longer."

"Rude."

"Accurate."

She carried the dragon toward the bathroom.

"I'll clean this."

"Please do."

"You're very judgmental for a man holding my closet door."

"I'm judging the closet."

"The dragon feels judged."

"It'll recover."

Cassidy disappeared down the hall laughing. Omar pulled nitrile gloves from his bag. The lower track was filthy, but the residue was not the actual mechanical failure. He scraped the dried film loose with a plastic blade, worked cleaner into the aluminum with a rag, and cleared the channel until he could see the hardware instead of guessing through grime. The left roller barely turned. He spun it once with his thumb. It stopped almost immediately.

The wheel had developed a flat spot, the bracket was twisted, and the adjustment mechanism had started binding. On the other side, the roller still moved but had enough side play that Omar would replace the pair rather than leave Cassidy with the next failure waiting. The track itself had a small bend where the bad roller had been dragging across it, but it was salvageable. Real problem. Real repair. The sexual mess had accelerated it and made everything stickier and uglier. It had not invented the broken hardware. Cassidy returned carrying the dragon wrapped loosely in an old towel.

"So."

"Both lower rollers are shot."

"That's bad?"

"It's why it keeps dropping."

"Can you fix it?"

"I brought replacements."

Her eyebrows went up.

"You just have closet-door organs in the van."

"Hardware."

"Door organs."

Omar peeled off one glove, reached for his coffee, and drank. It had already cooled enough to be disappointing. Cassidy looked toward the filming corner.

"Okay, question."

Omar knew that tone now.

"What?"

"I have to film a try-on thing today."

He waited.

"I can wait until you're gone," she continued. "But this is probably going to take you a while, right?"

"Forty-five minutes. Maybe an hour."

Cassidy made a face.

"I will absolutely find another reason not to do it by then."

Omar looked at the tripod. Then at her.

"You want to film while I'm working."

"Maybe."

"With me in the room."

"Not on camera." She pointed toward the mirror. "I can frame you out. You'd probably just be background sound unless you start singing. Honestly, a guy fixing a closet while I try on ridiculous clothes is probably good background content."

"I don't sing."

"I assumed."

She was joking, but there was care underneath it.

"If that's weird, say no," she said. "Seriously. I can wait."

Omar thought about the creator page. Cassidy on the couch. Cassidy using her old pump. Cassidy holding the dragon that was currently wrapped in a towel beside the bathroom door. That had been on a screen. This would not be.

"Keep my face and company stuff out of frame."

"Easy."

"And if you need me to move for a shot, tell me. Don't just assume I know where your camera is."

Cassidy nodded.

"Deal."

She held out a hand. Omar looked at it.

"What?"

"Nothing. I felt like we made an agreement."

He shook her hand once—professional, normal, and the only contact. Her hand was warm. Cassidy smiled and let go. She went to work. So did he. The bedroom changed quickly when Cassidy decided it was a set. Not cleaner. Directed. She shifted the leaning mirror a few inches to catch better window light. Extended the tripod. Clipped in her phone. Turned on the ring light. Then she threw a pile of clothing across the bed: neon straps, mesh, tiny bikini pieces, two things Omar could not identify until Cassidy held them up and explained them to the camera. Omar removed the first failed roller assembly.

Cassidy tapped record.

"Okay, hi. I bought more tiny clothes I absolutely did not need." Same voice as the page. Same wandering cadence. Same slight change when she spoke into a lens instead of to another person. "This is not a sponsored haul because nobody responsible would sponsor me." She stopped, frowned at the phone, and tapped the screen. "Nope. Hair in my mouth. Again." She cleared the strand from her lip, restarted, and delivered the opening a second time with almost the same words.

Omar smiled despite himself and kept working. The first set was neon green. Cassidy changed with her back partly to him, using the mirror and angle of the camera more than privacy. Omar kept his eyes on the roller bracket until her voice became camera-bright again.

"Okay. This one is trying."

He looked up. Not directly at her. At the mirror. The green top was built for considerably less Cassidy. Her breasts filled it heavily, the small triangles pushed wide and the strings working harder than the fabric. The matching bottom rode high over her hips. Dark curls escaped above it and around both sides, untrimmed bush refusing the clean little triangle the garment seemed to expect. Cassidy turned toward the mirror. Then sideways.

"This is technically clothing."

Omar watched her reflection. She looked at the camera, not him. So he kept looking. Her pale body was soft through the middle, heavy through the breasts and hips, thick through the thighs. Nothing about the little neon set simplified her shape. It only drew bright lines around it. Cassidy tugged one side of the bottoms. More hair escaped. She looked down.

"Actually, maybe don't do that."

Omar bit the inside of his cheek.

"Are you laughing?"

His eyes dropped instantly to the roller in his hand.

"No."

"Liar."

"I'm fixing the door."

"While laughing."

"Multitasking."

Cassidy grinned into the camera.

"He's very talented."

Omar pretended the bracket required profound concentration. The next piece was pink mesh. Then black straps. Every bottom failed in the same familiar way: some dark curl escaped above a waistband, beside a strap, or along an upper inner thigh. Then a yellow top Cassidy got halfway over one breast before stopping and staring at herself.

"Oh, absolutely not."

She laughed so hard she had to sit on the bed. Omar looked over before he could help himself. The top had folded itself into a narrow band under her breasts, which remained almost entirely outside the garment. Cassidy caught his eyes in the mirror.

"Too small?"

The question was casual. Not a trap. Not an invitation to touch. Omar considered lying for maybe half a second.

"Yes."

"Thank you."

She peeled it off, still laughing.

"I needed an expert."

"That is not my trade."

"Today it is."

She reached for the next piece. Omar returned to the door. The new roller assemblies matched the old bracket pattern closely enough that he did not need to modify the door. He set the first one, left the adjustment screw loose, installed the second, then returned to the lower track. He straightened the small bent section carefully with pliers and a block rather than trying to hammer directly against the aluminum. Cassidy changed again. The mirror gave him flashes. Her bare back. The heavy movement of her breasts. A narrow black string disappearing between her cheeks.

Dark curls showed around another absurdly small bottom. Omar worked. He also looked. Those things were no longer opposites in his head. When Cassidy turned toward him, his attention went to the track. When she turned back to the camera, his gaze returned to the mirror. He knew exactly what he was doing. So, increasingly, did she. She never called him on it. But once, while adjusting a strap, she looked into the mirror and caught his eyes already there. Neither of them moved for a beat. Then Omar looked down at his screwdriver. Cassidy's mouth curved slightly. She resumed talking to the camera.

The door was ready to rehang when she finished the last outfit. Omar lifted the panel, engaged the top guides, and set the new bottom rollers onto the cleaned track. He adjusted the roller height a little at a time until the panel hung plumb and cleared the carpet without wobbling. He pushed it. Smooth for most of the run. A faint catch near the center. Omar stopped. Not done. He knelt again and checked the lower channel. Behind him, Cassidy ended the haul.

"Okay, that's everything. You know where the links are. Do not buy the yellow top unless you're built like a bookmark."

She tapped the phone. The recording stopped. The ring light stayed on. Omar heard cardboard move. He glanced toward the dresser. Cassidy was crouched beside the German box. The tape was cut now. The lid opened. Inside, shaped foam held equipment that looked less like a novelty and more like something from a very specific laboratory.

The clear chamber was oval rather than cylindrical, large and deep, with enough volume that Omar understood immediately why Cassidy had been excited about it. A hose lay coiled beside it. There was a pressure regulator. A piston-style hand vacuum pump sat in its own cutout, solid and mechanical. German instructions rested on top of a drawstring storage bag. Cassidy lifted the chamber with both hands.

"Oh my god."

Her pleasure was so sincere that Omar laughed.

"What?"

"It's huge. This is the biggest one they make."

"You ordered the huge one."

"I knew the measurements. Measurements are fake until an object exists."

She turned it sideways. The box identified it as a Fröhle VP005 Solo Extreme Professional. Professional. Omar looked at that word. Cassidy saw him.

"Don't."

"I didn't say anything."

"Your face did."

"My face is professional."

"Sure."

She set the chamber on the bed and picked up the piston pump.

"This is so much better than the little bulb."

The old pumping video came back to him immediately. Her hand squeezing the bulb. The smaller clear cup. The moment her talking had broken apart. Cassidy looked at him. Then at the camera. Her expression changed slightly.

"Second question."

Omar waited.

"This is not the same as the clothes."

"No."

"I'm going to test it anyway because if I put it back in that box I'll spend three days thinking about it instead of doing it."

That sounded exactly like her. She held the hose loosely in one hand.

"But you don't have to be in here for that. Or you can finish the door later. Or I can wait until you're gone. Whatever."

Omar looked at the closet. One final catch to diagnose. A legitimate fifteen minutes of work, maybe twenty. Then at Cassidy.

"You'd keep me off camera?"

"Completely."

"And you're doing everything yourself."

Cassidy's eyebrows lifted.

"Yes."

"I mean the pump."

"I know what you meant."

A little smile. Then it disappeared.

"Seriously, Omar. If you say no, it's no."

He thought about the video from the night before. A screen. Pixels. His own apartment. He looked at the actual clear chamber in her hands.

"This is different in person."

"Probably."

He could leave. Nothing in the job required him to stand beside a woman testing a vulva pump. Nothing required him to pretend he did not want to.

"I'm okay," he said.

Cassidy held his gaze for a second longer.

"You can change your mind."

"I know."

"Okay."

She turned the ring light back toward the bed. This time Omar knew exactly what he had agreed to. That made the next ten minutes worse. Or better. Possibly both. Cassidy changed out of the last micro-bikini with her body mostly blocked from Omar by the open closet panel while she repositioned the camera. When she came back into his line of sight, she wore only the loose gray T-shirt, pulled up above her hips. Nothing below it. Her bush was dense and dark across the full rise of her naturally prominent mons. At baseline again, mostly.

The extreme swelling from the day before had eased, leaving the familiar heavy fullness of her own anatomy rather than the exaggerated aftermath Omar had watched the yellow thong fail to contain. Cassidy sat back against the pillows. She talked to the camera while assembling the hose and regulator. Conversational. Excited. A little scattered.

"I've been waiting forever for this thing, which is a lie because it got here yesterday, but emotionally it has been months."

Omar found the catch in the closet track. One tiny burr in the aluminum where the damaged roller had chewed the edge. He filed it smooth. Cassidy lubricated the sealing edge of the chamber according to the instructions. Omar did not look directly. The mirror remained less cooperative. She positioned the large oval chamber over her vulva and settled the rim against the skin around it. The cup looked enormous against her. Then it sealed. Cassidy reached for the piston handle.

"Okay."

One stroke. The pump made a firm mechanical pull rather than the soft squeeze-and-release sound of her old bulb. Cassidy stopped talking for half a second. Then looked toward the camera.

"That is immediately better."

Another stroke. She adjusted the regulator. Another. Inside the clear chamber, the first change was subtle. Her outer lips lifted under the vacuum. Then thickened. The tissue drew forward into the chamber in a way Omar recognized from the video and did not recognize at all because a screen had never given it scale. Cassidy kept talking. Mostly.

"This is—okay, I get why people like the piston."

Stroke. Pause. Breath. Her naturally prominent mons stayed full above the chamber, dark curls pressed and displaced around the upper seal. Below it, the labial tissue grew heavier inside the clear oval, deepening in color as it engorged. Omar's hand stopped on the door. He told it to move. It moved. He applied a tiny amount of dry track lubricant to a rag and wiped the cleaned aluminum rather than spraying the bedroom floor. Professional. Cassidy worked the piston again. Her voice thinned.

"Oh."

Omar looked into the mirror. The clear chamber now held much more of her than it had at the start. Her outer lips had swollen dramatically, thick and heavy under the sustained vacuum, filling space the old pump in the video never seemed to have offered them. Cassidy stared down through the plastic.

"Okay, that's ridiculous."

She sounded delighted. Omar swallowed. The scent in the bedroom had changed too. Warm skin. Old bedding. The lingering sex-smell that always lived in Cassidy's apartment. And now the fresher, intimate musk of her body responding a few yards away. No camera could reproduce that. No thumbnail carried heat. No video placed the mechanical pull of the pump in the same room as his breathing. Cassidy took another slow stroke. Her head tipped back. The sentence she had been saying disappeared. There it was. The transition. He had noticed it on her page the night before. Creator-Cassidy talking. Joking. Managing the lens.

Then the body taking over. Live, the change was smaller and infinitely more obvious. Her shoulders lowered. Her knees opened another inch. The hand on the piston paused while she breathed. Omar stared. The screwdriver remained in his hand. He had forgotten the screw. Cassidy opened her eyes. Not toward the camera. Toward the mirror. Toward him. She saw his face. Her own expression changed immediately. Not embarrassment. Attention.

"Omar?"

He blinked.

"Yeah."

"You okay?"

"Yeah."

She looked at him for another second. Then at the screwdriver in his hand that had not moved.

"You went somewhere."

Omar exhaled. Cassidy reached for the regulator. She released the pressure gradually. The chamber softened away from her body with a long controlled hiss. Only after the seal was gone did she set the pump aside. Then she reached for the phone. Tap. Recording stopped. Another tap. The ring light went dark. The bedroom changed. It was almost startling. No bright circle reflected in the mirror. No camera-light flattening everything. Just morning through the window. Messy bed. Clothes. Broken-door parts. Coffee going cold on the dresser.

Cassidy pulled the gray T-shirt down over herself and sat with her legs folded loosely beneath her.

"You didn't have to stop," Omar said.

"I know."

"I said I was okay."

"I know that too."

She looked at him.

"Are you?"

Omar considered the question. His body was making its opinion obvious beneath his work pants. That was not what she meant.

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"It's just—"

He stopped. Cassidy waited. No camera voice or teasing voice—just Cassidy. Omar looked at the dark ring light. Then the pump on the bed.

"I'm used to this when it's not in the room."

Cassidy's head tilted.

"Like the page."

"Yeah."

"And this is."

"In the room."

She nodded slowly.

"That's fair."

No joke. No sudden attempt to make him confess anything. Omar appreciated that more than he expected. Cassidy rubbed one thumb along the edge of the oversized shirt.

"I forget sometimes," she said. "Because for me it's just Tuesday."

Omar looked at the Fröhle chamber beside her.

"That's your Tuesday?"

"Sometimes Tuesday is worse."

He laughed. The pressure in the room eased. Cassidy smiled.

"There he is."

Omar shook his head.

"You stole that from somewhere."

"Probably myself."

A beat passed. Then she added, "You know you can change your mind halfway through stuff with me, right?"

"I know."

"I mean it."

"I know."

Cassidy nodded.

"Good."

Another beat.

"Also everybody has a thing. I have, like, nine."

Omar laughed again.

"Only nine?"

"Don't challenge me."

The room felt ordinary again—not nonsexual, impossible with the pump sitting open on the bed and Cassidy still flushed beneath the oversized shirt, but human. Omar crouched beside the closet.

"I've got one spot left."

Cassidy picked up her coffee.

"Fix my door."

"That's what I'm doing."

"Very slowly."

"Whose fault is that?"

She took a drink and made a face at the cold coffee.

"Fair."

Omar finished the track. The burr came smooth under the file. He wiped the channel clean again, checked both replacement rollers, and set their height until the door hung plumb with an even gap. Then he slid it. Left. Right. No drag. No jump. No grinding. He opened it all the way. Closed it all the way. Then repeated the cycle harder than Cassidy ever would, watching the rollers stay seated. The shallow groove in the carpet remained. History. Not a current failure.

"Okay."

Cassidy climbed off the bed. The shirt hung low enough to cover her front when she stood, though her hairy legs remained bare beneath it. She took the edge of the closet door.

"Try it."

She slid it open. Stopped. Looked at Omar. Then slid it closed. Her eyes widened.

"It doesn't do the thing."

"What thing?"

"The clack."

"Very technical."

She slid it again. Smooth. Again. Faster. Then slower. Omar watched her become genuinely delighted by a closet door behaving like a closet door.

"It just goes."

"That's generally the goal."

Cassidy opened it one more time and stared into the closet. The movement exposed more of the collection inside. Storage bins. A tote of filming clothes. Several toys standing in a plastic basket that was probably intended for something much less interesting. Bottles. A folded towel. Omar registered them. Cassidy noticed him register them. She did not hurry to shut the door.

"That's the organized section," she said.

Omar looked at the pile of toys.

"Of course it is."

She grinned. Then she closed the door. Smooth. The grin stayed.

"Okay. That's actually amazing."

"It's a roller."

"It's a functioning roller."

"High standards."

"I've been lifting that stupid thing for months."

"You could have called somebody."

"I did."

Omar looked at her. Cassidy seemed to realize what she had said. Something quiet passed between them. Not romance. Not yet. Just the acknowledgment that she had called him. Specifically him. She broke it first.

"How much?"

Omar gave her the number. No discount because she was Cassidy. No free labor because he had watched her film. Parts. Labor. Cleaning time. Repair. Cassidy picked up her phone.

"Invoice me."

"I will."

"And put 'dragon contamination surcharge' on it."

"I'm not putting that on a business invoice."

"Coward."

"Professional."

"Debatable."

Omar packed his tools. Failed roller assemblies into a small bag. Gloves into the trash. Scraper wiped. Dry lube capped. He left exactly one narrow strip of the bedroom around the closet cleaner than it had been when he arrived. Cassidy watched him from the edge of the bed. The German pump rested beside her in its foam-lined box now, the chamber rinsed and set on a towel to dry. Omar's eyes went to it once. Then to Cassidy. She caught him. This time he did not snap his gaze away as if she had caught him doing something wrong. He simply looked at her face. Cassidy's expression changed by a fraction. She knew.

Not everything. But she knew he had been paying attention.

"Thanks," she said.

"For the door?"

"The door."

A tiny pause.

"And for being normal."

Omar zipped the tool bag.

"I don't know if normal is the word."

Cassidy smiled.

"No. Probably not."

He picked up his coffee. Cold. He drank it anyway. At the front door she leaned against the frame, gray shirt hanging off one shoulder, bare hairy legs crossed loosely at the ankles.

"See you around?"

There was no new broken thing attached to the question. Omar noticed that.

"Yeah."

"Cool."

He stepped into the hallway. Behind him, from the bedroom, the closet door slid once. Then again. Cassidy laughed to herself. Omar smiled on the stairs. He had gone there to replace rollers. He had replaced rollers. The door worked. The invoice would be accurate. Those facts remained reassuringly simple. The rest was less simple. Last night, Cassidy's creator life had lived behind glass in his hand. Today he had stood inside it while she worked—the camera, the pump, the room itself.

The smell, heat, sounds, and the moment her talking disappeared into sensation had all existed in the same room as his tools. More important, Cassidy had noticed what that did to him and responded by shutting down the performance rather than mocking or pressing him. That stayed with him more stubbornly than the nudity. By the time he reached the van, Omar understood something he had not known when he arrived. Watching Cassidy was easy. Being seen watching her was going to be something else entirely