Images

Camellia walks around the room, looking at or pressing a finger to the relevant art pieces.

The first is called "Love". It's sequential art, so she taps the four ports in succession. Index finger is a soft blanket wrapped around her shoulders. Middle finger is a lover's smile, where the smile is put together like a memory or a dream, attached to the idea of "lover" and a general sensation of pleasant warmth rather than a particular lover's body. Her ring finger is a bright radiance and joined hands. The pinkie finger is the sensation of wrapping a blanket around someone else's shoulders.

She touches all four fingers at once and basks in the collective sensations for a moment before moving on.

The next is "The Rape of Persephone". Camellia pauses a moment to consult the ratings to the side, to know whether she should steel herself or skip this one altogether. There are a few standard notes that show up on any intentionally unpleasant works, but a few absent trigger warnings imply that the artist isn't using rape in the modern sense.

This is a single port, under glass so that people don't touch it accidentally, as is standard for the pieces rated above G. Camellia presses her palm to the pad under the glass and feels cold fingers wrapping around her rib cage, holding her firmly and stealing her warmth. Her discomfort continues after she takes her hand away, implying that the piece is intended to evoke it, rather than creating it whole cloth.

She tapped her key chain for the smell of old books until the feeling left her, then walked on to a section labelled "Green". The pamphlet explained that the word "Green" had been given to each artist, and so the pieces ranged from an immersive few moments in the Amazon jungle to greed to a scene viewed through night-vision goggles. Camellia walked through, tapping a few and skipping the ones with warnings for things she isn't in the mood for. It's a lovely afternoon, right up to the point where it's a lovely evening.

She buys "Love" to hang on her comfort key chain, even though the sequential stuff is a bit pricey. After some internal debate, she buys the Amazon-jungle "Green" and "The Rape of Persephone", the former because the artist took meticulous care in getting the small details right and she wants to be able to go back there, the latter because she's got a soft spot for art that only uses one of the senses to evoke complete scenes.