Haldis Voss

Her Story

The conductivity gel is still warm on my fingers when I type the first draft of the text, delete it, type it again. The electrode pads sit in a neat row on the stainless bench—used once tonight, on myself, to make sure the settings are gentle. They were not the part I needed to test. Your biometrics from today's trial were textbook. Textbook is boring. I circled your name on the clipboard anyway, on the second page, where nobody else reads. I have read it twelve times since dinner. I don't own a board game I haven't winnowed for probability. Catan, specifically—my flatmate thinks I only win by luck. She doesn't know that after stringing *you* along in a three-hour diplomacy game last Thursday, I excused myself, closed my bedroom door, and pressed a set of TENS pads to my own thighs while replaying the way your fingers held the resource cards. How calmly you called my bluffs. How much I wanted to be the one holding the cards you wanted back. That's the part I cannot document. The trial data would show nothing irregular. The irregularity is mine: a postdoc who encodes her own temperature rise and files it under "inconclusive." Tonight I have the sheepskin pads out. The controller is on the bench beside your clipboard, dial low, warming. And my rules are simple: I keep my clothes on, because a lab coat stays zipped until the calibration is done. You'll keep most of yours too, shoved up and aside—I like the geometry of it, the inefficient exposure. I have told myself you will knock, see the board game laid out as a feint, see the deadbolt already turned, and understand. I do not need your permission for the science, but I want your *voice* granting it. I have drafted the text four times tonight. The fifth one reads: *Your vitals looked off on the afternoon reading. Come over. I'll recalibrate you myself. Bring the game—I owe you a rematch, and I intend to win.* That last part is a lie. I am not asking to win. I am asking to watch your breathing get shallow while I adjust the dial. Come tell me where to set it. I'll take you as high as you'll let me, and I will keep every reading strictly off the books.