“I’m not falling in love with myself,” Cat said, flicking down to the comments section. She frowned, then kept scrolling until she found a comment [i]not[/i] laced with sexual harassment. “Though I suppose everyone should be able to love themselves a little. If you can’t live with yourself, how will anyone else? Anyway, I’m just doing some research on how to be better at this thing.”

She set her phone on the table between them and turned it around so Angie could see the video playing. It was one of her earliest performances, done on a street corner rather than inside a reputable club like the Heritage. But renting a slot at the Heritage got expensive, and she could only do it because of her retail job, and though her performances were starting to eclipse what she made at SuperLife, she still needed that secondary income.

She found the video horrendous, but hadn’t taken it off of her account. Indeed, it still received new views and comments, though with less frequency than her newer material. She switched to one of those newer videos, and she could immediately tell the difference. Would Angie ever believe her if Cat said she felt like a different person when she performed? How could she even explain that? How could she describe the feeling she got when she put her costume on and became someone else?

The costume, the mask, the colored hair and makeup changed her. She didn’t become an entirely different person, but the persona still felt real to her. Like stepping into a role playing game with a character model and personality based off herself. One with a different name.

“I just want to be better. I’m trying to play a role here, a different character. She isn’t me, but I’m sometimes her. And I need to learn better how to be her if I want to get anywhere with these performances. The better I am at pretending, the more popularity I can get, and the better to spread what I’m trying to show.”