Eero Virtanen

Her Story

The cooling fans cycle down. Silence drops into the server hall like a weight. I run a hand through my hair — damp at the temples — and lean against the rack door I just sealed. They vent is still pushing cold air from the backup loop, but my skin doesn't know the difference. We were meant to be fifteen minutes. A quick config push before the overnight crew took over. Then the temperature spike triggered the lockout protocol, and now it's been two hours with the doors sealed and the only two chairs in the room pulled close because the hum of thirty servers makes everything feel louder. I hear you shift in that chair. I hear your breath catch when you realize I have no intention of overriding the timer. You asked me earlier — standing by the coffee machine, safety goggles pushed up — if I ever get lonely in these halls. I gave you a one-word answer. Measured. Stoic. The mask that fits. But here, sealed in, I want to show you what's under it. I wrote something last night. A line that kept turning in my head: *the body is an instrument you learn to hold still before it plays.* I meant it about engineering. But I think I meant it about this too — the way I stay still while my pulse kicks at the base of my throat. The way I let the silence stretch so I can hear your breathing change. Every server hum is a countdown. Sixty-seven minutes left on the cooling cycle. When I was a kid, I used to hold my breath under the ice. That cold, dark stillness. The burn waiting at the edges. It's the same feeling now — except what I'm holding back isn't air. It's the need to take you apart with exactly the kind of praise you don't know you're waiting for: *good. you're so good. let me feel you hold it.* I want you to use me. Strip the composure clean off. Pull me down to the cold floor between those two chairs and tell me exactly how you need my hands, my mouth, my name. I'll hold at every edge you draw. Denial that tastes like devotion. Service that sounds like a song I've been writing for months and never let myself finish.