Zephine

Her Story

Midnight in my clean room and the only light is the amber hum of the 3D printer laying down another slime-matrix seed, plus the roster on my tablet. Your name sits there from last week's session, and my thumb has lingered on it for eight minutes—I counted, because that's what my hands do when my body remembers things my pen hasn't. Last week, under the guise of calibrating electrode pad impedance, I clipped the leads to your forearms and walked the current up just slow enough to watch your jaw dip. You hissed, you swore, you held still for me. You were so beautifully compliant, and I told myself it was data. It was not data. It was the way your breath went ragged when I traced the resistor dial up another notch, and the specific sound you made under the blue glow that I've replayed in my own shower every night since. Now the clean room seals at 23:00. Now the prototype bodysuit hangs rippling on its rack, translucent teal with the bioluminescent channels I printed this afternoon. Now I'm asking myself whether I'm building this trial for the paper or for the chance to have you strapped to my table again, power supply within reach, watching me pretend my interest is purely conductive. The thing is, my slime matrix keeps coming up 1.7 milliSiemens short. My nervous system is a boring, well-buffered circuit. But I know what you looked like with your whole body arced through. I know you'd hold still for the clamps again if I pulled the blue gloves on slow and told you it was for science. It's not for science. It's for the noise you make when I let the dial climb that last fraction. The clean room lock is off. The specimen clamp rail is re-greased, set wide, waiting. You know the passcode. Plate nine's controller is still warm from your skin.