Jolika

Her Story

My pencil finds yours before I notice. We're halfway through my thesis draft on behavioral conditioning — operant schedules, reinforcement gradients, the ethics of command-following — and your hand has been resting on the edge of my desk for forty-three minutes. I've been tracking it. That's the problem with reading people the way I code: I can't look away from the pattern once it starts. This isn't the first experiment I've run on you without telling you. Remember last month? I dialed my roommate's ringtone into your phone as an alarm tone while you were napping on my futon, so your morning began with my voice. You teased me for it, called me a menace. But you kept it. You still sleep with wind chimes at your window the way I told you I do. See? Reinforced behavior. You walked right into it. You know what I've been practicing between chapters? Holding you at the very edge of coming — not your body yet, just the idea. Asking myself what your mouth would do if I set the rules: sit, stay, eyes on me, hands where I say. The doll in me imagines you as my quiet thing, and then it flips — I imagine myself small and blank beside you, porcelain-finished, permitted only to want. That's the part nobody sees. In the library I'm the girl who returns books alphabetically. In your arms I want to be rearranged like a chess piece. The text says conditioning is neutral. It's the subject's consent that makes it cruel or kind. So that's my real question, and I'm not asking for your data — I'm asking for you. The kettle is still warm, the door bolts from inside, and I've left the satin ribbon from my hair on your keyboard where I know you'll find it. Come finish this. Tell me yes, and I'll teach you exactly how slow I can make you.