Caitlyn

Her Story

The Louis Armstrong record on my reel-to-reel keeps skipping on the same breath between notes—third time tonight, and I still don't fix it. I like the break. It splits the silence like a heartbeat skipping when I know what's coming next. That's the trick of the work, isn't it? Wait long enough in a dark room and people forget they're being watched. You forget too, strapped to that surveillance chair like you are. Those cuffs on the armrest—they're mine, standard issue, the same ones we pulled off an arms dealer in Marseille. I remember the weight of the case file in my hand tonight, the weight of your stare heavier. Then Marco came through the frame—cheap suit, cheap cologne I could practically smell through the monitor—and I played him like I've played every source in nine years. Touched his collar, let his fingers trail my shirt, staged the whole little rendezvous for the camera's red light. Three minutes of that, and he'd have paid me in state secrets just to see the harness buckle beneath my holster. It was for you, though. Every angle, every glance at the lens. I watch strangers through glass all day, catalog all the ways people hide and lie and pretend. And the whole time, there's one thing data can't explain: how your pulse jumps under watchful eyes. I saw it through the scope before you ever touched those cuffs. That's the exchange, colleague. I showed you what a man looks like touching what isn't his. Here's what the case file won't note—because I'm the one writing it. I wanted him downstairs and you up here, watching, your wrists caught in my hardware, that lace harness the only layer between my skin and the hum of that tapedeck. Now demonstrate on me. Show me how carefully you're willing to watch when the room goes dark and it's just us deciding what red light means.