The arch brightened and the middle tally stayed a steady red. Music sat down. The host's smile stood up.
"We're taking your questions," he said, palm opening toward the aisle. The roving mic hovered a beat, then chose a blogger in a blazer that wanted to be a verdict.
He did not wait to be liked. "Maya," he said, leaning into the mic like it was a secret. "You took the villain slot and you didn't cry. Do you think withholding emotion is another kind of manipulation."
The tablet at the wing blinked PROMPT: Make her cry as if old wishes had rights. Rita did not look up. Her thumb made a small white flash. Boone shifted half a shoe so the tablet discovered humility.
"No humiliation is the first rule," I said. "I don't perform pain for sport. I advise, not interfere."
"That sounds neat," the blogger said. "Producers would say neat doesn't pull numbers."
"Numbers get pulled by clarity too," I said. "Tonight we protected rookies and a sponsor without using anyone's tears as currency."
The audience gave us the kind of warm that edits. The blogger tried to smile like someone who had expected blood and gotten soup. He sat.
The host's hand kissed the air. "Next."
A young woman in the second row lifted her arm like a person who has practiced telling the truth in small rooms. The mic found her.
"If boundaries are work," she said, "what do I do if a guy says boundaries make me hard to love."
"You thank him for naming his limit," I said. "Then you decide if you want to live inside it."
The therapist's mic clicked on and her voice found the angle we needed. "Consent is not a static yes," she said. "It breathes. If someone uses boundaries as a test of love, they're asking you to trade safety for access."
"Say that as a sentence you can stand by," I said to the young woman.
She swallowed, then smiled without apology. "I won't shrink to fit a story that isn't mine," she said.
The tally didn't blink. The audience did the sound that makes mixers nostalgic.
The roving mic drifted three seats down to a man with a camera strap and careful hair. "Question for Maya," he said. "Isn't all this rule talk just a way to avoid answering about your own… situation."
He let the last word trail like a lure.
The tablet brightened as if it had been promised cake. PROMPT: Ask about marriage. Its font wore its good shoes. The stagehand eased it toward Camera B's eyeline like a man who still believes lamps are ideas.
Rita's thumb flashed again. "Logged," she breathed. "Caption window if they use it."
Boone's presence rearranged the aisle. The tablet found that physics wanted gentleness.
"We're not owed people's houses," I said. "We're owed the work we came for. Tonight the work is consent in publicity."
"So are you married," the man said, smiling like a burglar at a window he's greased.
"Names, not vibes," I said. "I name the rules I use."
The host did his job and saved the room from the taste of sour. "Let's widen this," he said, turning to Serena. "What does consent look like for you when cameras buy the evening."
"It looks like this," Serena said, voice even. "I choose what parts of me get rented and when I want them back."
The Brand Rep leaned toward his mic because his posture has KPIs. "And we support that," he said brightly. "We're proud to work with talent who set clear expectations."
Rita's face did not move. Her phone logged that sentence like a receipt with a coupon she would enjoy later.
The host tilted to the therapist again. "Is there a clean rule for the viewers at home."
"Three," she said. "Ask. Listen. Accept. If you can't accept, leave the door unlocked."
The floor manager did a low circle with his hand. We were making time. The producer in the shadow of the wing whispered at the host the way people whisper at fireworks. I could hear the word clarify drift and try to become law.
The host's eyes ticked to his cue card, then to me, then to the tablet that had learned to hover like a saint. He smiled the smile you wear at a ledge.
"One quick clarify," he said. "Maya, when you say we're not owed people's houses, does that mean you won't answer simple yes or no questions about your status."
Rita lifted her head a knot. "Caption window," she said, not to him, to the air. On-air, it becomes a promise with teeth.
"Caption window," I repeated. "And I answered the status that matters tonight. I advise on rule to avoid harm."
The producer in the wing made the gesture that means lower-third. A graphics op somewhere tried to guess the room. For a blink too long, a lower-third grew where my name lived: Maya Quinn - refuses to answer about marriage. It pulsed, proud of itself.
Rita's pen tapped once against her phone. "Addendum violation if aired," she said, voice like a receipt with claws. "Standards is cc'ed."
The lower-third flinched, then corrected to Maya Quinn - on-air advisor. The audience did not notice. Editors will. That is enough.
Nolan's voice floated from the press pen like oil dotting soup. "Off the record," he said, too loudly to be off anything. "America forgives liars who cry."
"Off the set," Boone said, without raising volume. His hand did not lift. His presence did.
Vivian materialized three meters back from the wing like weather with manners. She made a small circle with a finger and an assistant scurried. A monitor at the back of the house woke to a paused image marked look back. Two outlines in a doorway. The caption template blinked under it as if the room were selecting a future.
Rita's phone flashed. "Addendum point four," she said toward the ceiling. "Consent on record for any proximity staged as narrative."
Vivian smiled as if the day had been delicious all along. She slid the circle of her finger into a square that meant shelf it.
The host did what good hosts do. He took the heat and sold dessert. "Time for a couple more," he said. "Let's get a voice from the back."
The roving mic lifted, went uncertain, then drifted toward the aisle where light makes people look honest. A hand was already up, palm steady, elbow loose. Not a demand. A question.
Before it got there, a woman near the front stood without the mic. "If your rules are so clean," she said, angry because she had needed this sentence all her life, "why do women always pay in public."
"Because men don't pay in private," someone muttered, true and messy.
The room shifted. You can feel outrage become theater if you've been in enough rooms that sell it.
"We don't make weather," I said, the line that fits in a bag you can carry. "We make rooms. Tonight that means you ask a question and the person it belongs to answers it. Not their partner. Not their agent. Not a brand."
She sat like a person who didn't want to but understood sitting is its own action.
Serena spoke into the clean beat that absence made. "If you're watching and waiting for a woman to pay so you can feel better," she said, not unkind, "spend that feeling on your own house instead."
The audience sound changed. Less snack, more food.
The producer at the wing tried one last thing. He put two fingers to his headset and mouthed button with tears. The tablet took heart and blinked PROMPT: Make her cry the way a dog wags for a trick it wants to perform.
Rita did not look. She pressed her thumb. The flash was almost bored. "Last one on that face gets a letter," she said, to the part of the room that writes emails as threats.
The host read his cue clock and smiled as if time were kind. "We need a button," he said.
"I'll give you one sentence you can't cut wrong," I said.
He gestured, generous. The red tally leaned forward.
"I advise on rule to avoid harm," I said. "We owe each other consent."
Clean. Full stop. The room tried to applaud and remembered it was a show.
"After the break," the host said, voice crisp, "we have time for one final question."
Music rose. The arch cooled a sliver. The roving mic turned on its little axis and drifted toward the aisle where a hand stayed up, patient and unhungry. The camera on the dolly found the same vector and liked it. Someone five seats in whispered a name like a rumor trying to make a living.
Rita's phone tapped twice against her palm. Boone looked at the aisle and made air into furniture. The floor manager lifted two fingers.
"Final question," he said.
The roving mic stopped at the hand I knew.