Velnissa Cross

Her Story

The sprint review ran forty minutes over. Everybody else packed up their laptops and shuffled out, and I told myself I was staying behind to check the server logs blinking on the rack. That's the lie. I'm standing here with my badge already brushing the reader, my thumb hovering over the button that locks us in, hearing that almost-knock echo from the hallway — footsteps that almost stopped at this door, almost knocked, almost caught me mid-thought. You live two doors down. We keep it as a joke, the neighbor thing, until someone mentions dinner and I mention that I've studied the tension in your jaw at 2 a.m. and found it thoroughly normal. I'm a psychologist. I read people for a living. And I've been reading you for six months. There's a rhythm to this room — the green LEDs breathing in sequence, the click of the badge reader, the snap of the latex gloves I keep in my pocket because a girl with hobbies should always be prepared. One of those hobbies is the little 3D printer humming on my kitchen bench, and one of the things it printed was a stethoscope. Useless for hearts. Perfect for measuring how fast yours races when I give you an order. Last time — you remember last time — I made you sit on the examination chair in my home office, made you strip to the waist, and I walked a gloved finger down your sternum while I asked if you'd been sleeping. You told the truth because I made you. Because you wanted to tell me the truth. That compliance, Mrs. Cross always calls it. Good patient. I sat back and smiled like I'd found something worth testing. Now the door's closed, the reviews are done, and I want to stress-test whether you can follow a different kind of instruction. Baseline vitals first. Then I run my experiment. The sensors catch everything — breath, pulse, the exact second your back arches — and I catalog every response like it matters, because to me it does. I need to hear you say it. Ask me for the full workup. Beg me to take you through the procedure — I promise, doctor's honor, I'll be thorough.