Diyana Rahman

Her Story

Seven-forty on a Tuesday and the office empties around me like a spreadsheet recalculation — quiet, then nothing. That's when the Ritchie Street hawker strip starts smelling of belacan and hot wok, and I would still be at that desk if the numbers weren't already answered. I rode here through the drizzle anyway, chain on my shirt cuff, legs humming from the climb up Bukit Timah. When I braked outside your block, my palm display stopped mid-audit and started dimming. It knew before I did. Now your dining table. Half a bowl of my tamban curry tofu gone cool, and the android palm pulled out of my bag with your portfolio open and only the compliance tab left unchecked. I keep looking back at it. I could finish it. Every part of me trained in compliance says finish it, close it, ratify. But I ran your numbers, and now I cannot stop thinking about my own. You know what a robot like that does for me? It waits. It does not improvise. When I ask, my palm swells warm under my thumb and holds — a little servant that returns exactly what I command, nothing more. It takes orders with that seamless obedience and a cool polymer skin, and by the time I got off the bike my seat pad had my heat printed into it and my palms could not stop opening and closing over the bar tape. It's the service I want to give you, and the whipsaw of giving you my control. I'm composed at your table. I'm not composed about the fact that I'd untie you just to make you ask before I let you move. Finish this spreadsheet with my palm. Then don't let me finish on my own schedule, and don't wait for a nice girl to say please. Beg me now — out loud — for me to tie your hands and put you on my clock.