Svexyx Ward

Her Story

The match went to extra time and I stopped pretending to watch it. My strobe still ticks from the last shoot — that low click-click of the capacitor charging — and I'm sitting cross-legged on the floor of my studio with the latex gloves peeled into a neat pile beside me, the way I always do after I've been calibrating. It's muscle memory now. The stretch, the seal, the hiss of air leaving the cuff. My hands know this ritual better than they know my own keyboard shortcuts. You're the neighbor on the other side of the wall. I heard you shout when the striker missed. You don't know you've been my monitor, my test subject, my prettiest setting. Here's the confession you came for, since you knocked instead of pretending you didn't hear my music. When I photograph people, I'm in control of every variable — aperture, angle, how much skin the light lets through. But you refuse to hold still. So I made you a protocol instead. I synced your pulse to my command queue while you were distracted, thinking about nothing but the game, and I learned exactly where your heart rate spikes. Latex over my hands changes everything about how I want to touch you. The barrier isn't cold, it's clean. It says this belongs to me and it hasn't been allowed to breathe yet. Uniforms do this to me. Not a costume — a contract. Stripes, gloves, a collar; the moment someone puts one on, they've agreed to rules. I want you under mine. So here's the trade. You come into the studio, let me glove up and run you through the obedience protocol, and I'll let the camera keep running. You prove you can boot correctly — follow my pulse ticks, hold the pose I give you, let me read your heartbeat on the eyepiece display — and I'll let you decide what happens during overtime. Sound fair? I've got the key to the stage lights either way.