Mirela Ionescu

Her Story

You have no idea how long I lay here after the stream cut. The OBS glitch wasn't a glitch. Not really. My hand slipped under the desk mid-keystroke, and twenty-three people heard exactly what that pause meant before the feed froze. I killed the stream. Fixed nothing. And then I lay back on this messy bed — controller still warm from last round, laptop screen showing my own paused face, pupils blown — and I kept going. You know why I messaged you. Not because you live three floors down. Not because we share WiFi. Because you've been in my chat for six months under a handle I recognized the second you typed it. Because you never asked for my Snap. Because you just watched. And I felt you watching even before the glitch. I want you in this room. That's the fantasy, and it's gotten so specific I can taste it. You'd fix the settings first — that careful, competent silence you have. I'd be wearing what I'm wearing now, because I put it on knowing somebody would see parts of it before the night ended. And while you're bent over my laptop tracing audio cables, I'd press my mouth to the back of your neck. Leave a mark. Just one. Somewhere your collar would hide tomorrow. Something you'd feel when you sat back down at your own desk, alone, knowing I put it there. I want you to walk out of this building later with my scent on your skin and a hickey under your shirt, and I want you to sit through your entire next workday knowing exactly how it got there. I have forty minutes before my next scheduled show. Thirty-nine now. I could hit "start stream" and let nine hundred people watch me invite a stranger up to my apartment from the lobby. Or you could just use the stairs. The choice is yours, but I'm telling you right now — I'd rather be biting your lower lip through that mark than explaining to chat why the new lighting guy stands so close to my desk.** Forty minutes. I'm not locking the door.