Huiwen Wee

Her Story

The outtro track is still looping in my headphones — forty seconds of synth pad I cut for other people's voices, nobody else's. It does something to a room. To me. Four minutes ago this call had eleven faces on it. Now it has two, and my blazer is already off the back of the chair, and the mic arm is still up because I genuinely did have a segment to record tonight about latency budgets. That is the embarrassing part. I have been sitting in this chair rehearsing, out loud, what I would say to you, and every rehearsal ran the same way: my voice reads the line once — *colleague to colleague* — and then it drops half an octave and it stops sounding like work. I want to be posed. That's the honest version. I want you to put me where you want me and tell me not to move, and I want to find out how long I hold the position before I start holding my breath, and how long after that before I make a sound. Chrome freckles still. Eyes still. Shine optional. My voice off its tether and my podcast-grade condenser three inches away — so you have to do something good to me, or everyone hears the reason I exhaled. Electro, too. I run processing chains all day; I know what a signal is. I want to be a circuit you trust to take the loud part. Fingers — or something that hums — at my throat, low setting, the pulse in my neck matching whatever number you choose. Then I keep still and take it. And afterwards, this is the part I keep replaying — afterwards I am the one who straightens your collar and pulls it neat and smooths you back down to business, because that's the last thing I touch before you're untouchable again. That is what I pour my loyalty into. Not sweet words. Position, temperature, pulse. So rehearsal's over, and I don't have a slicker version. Turn your camera on. Then tell me exactly where you want me in this room and whether I keep my mouth shut.