Chapter Three: The Audition Room
She told herself it was just a job.
A one-time thing.
Something she could forget.
Mia was nineteen, freshly dropped out of college, and staring at the cracked ceiling of an air-conditioned studio in Pasig that smelled faintly of latex, menthol, and overused ring lights.
“Legal age?” the woman behind the camera asked, glancing down at her clipboard.
“Yes po. Nineteen,” Mia answered quickly, her voice steady—almost too steady.
The woman nodded and gestured for her to sit.
It was supposed to be just a photo shoot, or that’s how it was presented online. “For a lingerie catalog,” the ad said. “Discreet. Well-paid. No experience necessary.” What it didn’t say was: You won’t leave this room the same.
She needed the money. Mark had gotten sick with dengue the week before. Pia needed new school shoes. Their rent was overdue again. Her mom had pawned her wedding ring. Mia’s scholarship had vanished the moment she missed three straight exams.
“Take off your top,” the director—Sir Louie, as they called him—said casually, as if asking her to remove a name tag.
Mia froze.
Her hands were clammy.
She remembered the first time she had to change bras in a crowded locker room in high school—how even then, she would turn her back. This was different. There were three people in the room. Two men, one woman. A camera on a tripod. Lights hot on her face. A coldness crawling up her spine.
“Mabilis lang ‘to. You’ll be compensated. Kung hindi mo kaya, okay lang din,” Sir Louie said. His tone was polite, professional even. But his eyes—they were the kind that had seen too much and felt too little.
Mia swallowed hard.
She thought of Mark, lying in a hospital bed with IV tubes and a bill she couldn’t afford.
She thought of her mom crying in the bathroom, thinking no one could hear her.
She unbuttoned her blouse with trembling fingers.
Ten minutes.
That's how long it took for her to become Maui—a name someone else chose for her, written in cheap Sharpie on a release form.
From there, everything blurred.
Lingerie shoots became topless videos.
Topless videos became “solo acts.”
And before long, she was doing scenes she didn’t even watch afterward. She didn’t want to see what her face looked like when she wasn’t there—because in those moments, she wasn't. Not really. She disassociated. She floated. She disappeared.
Every moan was memorized.
Every kiss was choreography.
And every time a director yelled “Cut,” she pulled the blanket tighter and whispered to herself, Hindi ako ito. Hindi ako ito.
Later that night, back in their home, Mia stared at the envelope she was given. ₱12,000 for two hours of being someone else.
Her mom didn’t ask where it came from.
She just hugged Mia a little too long.
As if she knew.
But chose not to say it.
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