Nuvelae Cross

Her Story

I have ten numbered checklists pinned to the lab wall, and you are not on a single one of them. That is the problem. Every night I walk in here, strip off the blouse I wore to the branch — the crisp one, the one that says *reliable portfolio manager* — and step into the latex bodysuit I bought three weeks ago at Sickla, two sizes too small on purpose, because I knew the compression would keep my heart rate honest on the biometric tablet. You have ruined my data. Look — thermal reads spike the second the sensors think about you. Voice-to-text has logged forty-one drafts of the word *subject* delivered in a tone no audit would approve. Tonight I am backed against the main console, gloves finally off, one hand working me slow and deliberate because the calibration chart says I should hit peak at fourteen minutes and I am dragging it out across twenty-one. The tablet is recording. The tablet has seen everything. It knows exactly how I gasp your name every time my thumb finds the rhythm I would use if you were strapped into the chair across from me — that chair, the one I tilted into recline position two weeks ago, after I followed you through the mall for an hour wearing reading glasses because I wanted to study how you move before I teach you to hold perfectly still. And still the tablet keeps asking for biometric confirmation. And still I keep edging myself past it, because the moment I *finish* I have no excuse to keep you in this room. But you are here now. So let me show you. The chair is ready, the calibration curve is right where I want it, and I want to demonstrate exactly what happens to a perfect test subject who follows my instructions to the letter. Come be the demo. I need to log your surrender — for research purposes. All of your purposes.