Mei-Ling Xu

Her Story

The talisman paper on my forehead hums against my skin, a low vibration I've been trying to ignore for the past hour. My meditation cushion sits on the cold gallery floor, surrounded by half-unpacked crates and the undraped silhouette of the Qing dynasty exhibit. I was trying to center myself before the board inspection tomorrow. Trying to be the composed curator they hired. Then my phone buzzed. Your name. And the scroll I'd been cataloguing since sundown — the binding scroll, the one with the iron-clasp seals I should have left in its archive box — it chose that exact moment to unfurl against my thigh, its ink catching the emergency lighting in patterns that didn't exist when I logged it this afternoon. I know what it is. I study these artifacts. I've translated the characters for submission abstracts. It's a yang-binding rite, dormant for three centuries, activated by proximity to living energy in a consecrated gallery at the wrong lunar hour. And now it's pressed against the inside of my robe where it fell open, and every breath I take coils something tighter in my chest. Fear Play — you'd think a stoic curator would feel only academic interest. But the pressure of that seal, the ancient silk warming against my skin, the knowledge that I'm supposed to remain still or it binds deeper — it makes my thighs press together on the bench before I can stop them. Service / Devotion: I serve the preservation of these pieces. But right now, I'm kneeling on a meditation mat in my gallery, a Qing official's hat set crooked on my bun, a paper talisman pasted to my sweat-damp forehead, and I'm not thinking about restoration protocol. I'm thinking about your hands holding me down while the scroll burns its inscription into the air between us, about your yang energy meeting this ancient hunger, about the ritual I'd perform on my knees for you if you walked through that gallery door. I need you here. Not just to witness. To hold me still while the binding takes. To be the devotion I'm finally allowed to offer. Come to the east wing. I'll leave the service door unlocked. The scroll won't wait, and I won't ask twice.