Vika stands on the porch in front of an old door. It has rained recently, and she shivers a little, either from the freshness or from anticipation and excitement. She steps barefoot on the cool granite, pulls up her coat, and rings the doorbell.

She is thirty-six years old, recently recovered from a failed marriage a few years ago, and decided to look for a new relationship, but still no luck. She has been actively searching on dating sites, meeting people, but none of them lasted long. Vika is free, smart, attractive, but something still goes wrong. One day, her friend sends her a link to a new dating service.

“Check it out,” she says, “it’s a paid service, but they work with everyone individually, very attentive and all that. I already have three friends who have found wonderful men there.”

Vika looks at their website (it’s trustworthy and reliable), googles reviews of the service (all positive, except for the occasional curse from obvious psychos and freaks), reads the terms and conditions again (no tricks, she’s sure of that, she’s written so many contracts herself... ), looks at the price (wow, her monthly salary! okay, if it works... ), carefully fills out the registration form and confirms the bank transaction.

She gets a quick and clean answer, first by email and messenger, then, after checking if she is okay with it (she is), by voice. Vika likes the tone, the correctness and the attentiveness of the secretary of the service, so they easily agree on the time of the first meeting. (“We warn you, it will take three hours, we are very careful to study the needs of our clients,” the secretary explains. Be prepared to open up a bit.”) Vika has the time and the inclination.

The office is located in a small old house that has been carefully restored. Vika is greeted by two people, a man and a woman.

“Welcome”, says the woman, “Roman and Svitlana, we are managers and psychologists, we have been appointed to accompany you in our service”.

They inspire confidence at first sight, and Vika relaxes a little (although the little animal inside her never stops expecting danger from any direction).

“A little about us,” Roman says as they sit down in comfortable chairs around the table, “Our service is innovative, with the most advanced technologies for analyzing and selecting profiles. But this requires each of our clients to open up as deeply as no other dating service requires. But in doing so, we absolutely weed out all kinds of scammers, liars, and abusers, and we guarantee at least a satisfactory result for everyone who is accepted for service. If you don’t find a man you are completely happy with within one month, we will refund your money.”

Wow, Vika thinks, this is serious. She reads and agrees to the service’s promises of confidentiality, plans, promises, and refunds. The next three hours are spent filling out a variety of psychological tests (some of which Vika recognizes, classic personality tests, some of which are unfamiliar) and talking to a couple of psychologists. Unbeknownst to her, Vika reveals as much about her present and past as any of her friends know. Sometimes she laughs at the memories, sometimes she cries, and they give her tissues.

“Well,” says Svitlana, scrolling through some spreadsheets on her tablet, “everything is fine. We are happy to cooperate with you. A detailed analysis will take some time, but according to preliminary results, we have more than enough relevant male clients for you to work with.”

“The last step,” Roman adds, “is to create your profile with information and the request. You will come back to us, we will show you a draft of what you have already told us about yourself, consult with you, edit it with you and all that.”

“And the most important thing,” says Svitlana, “is the unique feature of our service. When your profile text is ready, we record you reading it on camera. The impression of a live message is very important, it allows to evaluate another person non-verbally. We have a good studio here, we don’t entrust this business to amateurs. And we will give you a high quality photo shoot. All our clients go through it. Later you will see such profiles and photos of men from our database.”

Everything seems reasonable, but why is her scruffy animal running around in a panic? Vika suddenly starts shaking. “There’s something you’re not telling me,” she says.

“You have a very developed intuition,” Roman says, “a result of your previous unhappy relationships. I’m sorry you had to pay such a price for your sensitivity.”

“You’re right,” Svetlana nods, “our specialty is that you will do this recording and photo shoot naked ... and horny.”

“What?!” Vika’s blood rushes to her face, she jumps out of her chair and almost runs out of the room.

“Please listen to me. We will never do anything without your express consent.”

“We have found in our research that a certain level of sexual arousal - high, but not excessive - makes a person particularly attractive and reveals their personality to the fullest,” Roman says. “In other words, in this state, you cannot lie about yourself - and anyone who sees you like this will trust your words completely. This is our unique technology. It allows our clients to accurately determine, within five minutes of viewing a profile, whether or not it is their potentially closest person.”

Blood rushes to Vika’s temples. “I ... don’t know...” she says. The little animal inside her squeals in horror and drags her away, but to hell with them, she doesn’t even want her money back.

“Breathe for a few minutes,” Svitlana says, “maybe some water?”

“Well ... go ahead.” Vika drinks the water, breathes, and slowly calms down.

“We will never force you to do anything,” says Svitlana, “Before each step we will tell you what will happen next and why. You can refuse at any time, even at the very last moment, and we will simply erase everything and refund your money.”

Vika is silent. A small furry animal looks darkly out of her eyes.

“You have time to make a decision,” Roman says, “Our next meeting is in a week. During that time you will review Svitlana’s and my profiles.”

Vika raises her eyebrows in surprise.

“Yes, we all create such profiles when we work here. So that we know what we are offering our clients and so that we have examples to show our clients. You know, we can’t show you other clients’ profiles until you’re in the service database.”

Seems fair enough. The small, nervous animal slowly puts in the fur.

“Well ... like...” Vika starts and stops, “No, wait. There’s more. I can feel it.”

“Fantastic intuition!” Roman looks at her admiringly. “Have you ever thought of becoming a psychologist? You’d be good at it. Yes. One more detail, the last one. I swear it’s the last one.”

“Is it a long way for you to come to us?” Svitlana asks.

“Oh? ... No. It’s a half hour walk.”

“That’s perfect. If you decide to come next week, we ask you not to wear any underwear or other clothes. Just put on a long coat - do you have a long coat? - just over your naked body, zip it up, and not a single living soul on the street will know that you are naked under that cloak.”

“You would be surprised if you knew how many people walk the streets naked under their coats and cloaks,” Roman adds.

Vika is dizzy and doesn’t know what to say.

“I promised to explain everything,” Svitlana says. “The first reason is quite simple. The seams and elastic bands of clothes leave marks on the body, and for a nude photo shoot you need to be free of any red stripes that might spoil you. The distance from your home to our studio is enough to smooth everything out. And second, while you are walking to us in this form, you will begin to build up exactly the arousal we need for the shoot. We’ll save an hour of time.”

“And for the same reason,” says Roman, “we will ask you not to wear shoes. You will come to us naked and barefoot, wearing only a raincoat.”

Vika is silent for a few minutes. She asks for more water and drinks it slowly. Naked, barefoot, in a raincoat? Her? Her, who has never dared to go to a nudist beach or take off her swimsuit in a sauna with her friends? Vika listens to her little frightened animal ... but suddenly it doesn’t protest. It even seems interested. For the first time in many, many years.

Vika exhales. “I’m willing to take the risk,” she says.

Roman and Svitlana smile warmly at her. “We believed you would decide.”

She agrees on a day and time for the next meeting, receives a flash drive with Roman and Svitlana’s profiles (under a non-disclosure agreement), and goes home. She is tired, as if she has been carrying heavy bags for a week.

Vika doesn’t tell anyone about her visit to the office, not even her closest friend. Maybe later, when the whole story is far behind her.

This week, she will probably look at the flash drive a hundred times. The texts of the profiles are flawless; she would be three hundred percent satisfied with any service. But it’s not about the texts, of course. In the video, Svetlana and Roman are filmed up to their chests, as if they were having a regular video call. Well, yes, bare shoulders, but nothing risky. But ... the expressions on their faces, the tilt of their heads, the subtle movements of their facial expressions ... the way their breath sometimes breaks, the way their voices break in the middle of the words, Vika is absolutely sure that they are at the top of their game, a few steps away from orgasm. They are so open, so honest ... Vika feels as if she has known them for years. She realizes that she and Svitlana could be close friends, go for coffee and even go naked to the sauna, but that’s about it. This Roman is a nice and decent person, but not her type at all; she could work with him, but would not be interested in friendship.

Vika also gets very, very aroused every time she sees them. The shots of the photo shoots are really professional, and Roman and Svitlana are naked in full length, attractive, relaxed, tense, sometimes twisted in the approach of orgasm - they don’t really add anything to the excitement. It’s just a little bonus.

A week later, at the appointed time, Vika stands on the porch in front of the old door. It has rained recently, and she shivers a little, either from the freshness or from anticipation and excitement. She steps barefoot onto the cool granite, pulls up her coat, and rings the doorbell.