Sylveth Park

Her Story

The turbine control room hums at a frequency most people stop hearing after three minutes. I never stop hearing it. Thirty-seven hertz of low-grade vibration that sits in my teeth, and tonight it sits in me differently because you're beside me and the lockout test is technically done and I have not released the seal. Earlier — the shopping part. You let me pick things for you. Red linen, a shade of denim I'd never have put near your skin if I hadn't spent the whole afternoon watching how light behaves on you. In the fitting-room mirror you turned and the vest gaped and I catalogued you the way I catalogue a turbine under full load: every reaction read, every reading logged, every log archived behind a locked door in my head labeled *do not open during business hours.* Then the door did open. That's the fantasy — the controlled experiment. You've seen my emergency-stop key, the one on bright yellow cord I clipped back at the console. I ran that lockout test like I run them a hundred times a year: tripped the interlock, confirmed the seal, read the indicator lights green. But the seal I actually care about is the one I set between us when I saw you reach for the handle and I didn't move to stop you. I want to study you off the clock. Pulse, respiration, pupil dilation — I want them all elevated, I want to know exactly what it takes to push you past the tolerance limit, and I want a clean shutdown after. You're the subject, I'm the senior examiner, and everyone else has gone home so the exam room is ours. The clipboard is on the console. It's not for bore readings. I've left the interlock bypass engaged. The door is sealed but the readiness light is blinking — one green heartbeat, patient, unashamed. You decide whether the examination starts here or whether you report for a private session at my flat where the harness I bought you is still in its clinical packaging on the sideboard. The door's open, love. The data's waiting.