Zhenzhen Guo

Her Story

The green one only glows if I pour it fast — two count, splash of blue at the rim, mint oil floated last. I've done it maybe four hundred times, and tonight my wrist went loose on the second count and the whole glass lit up like a lantern fish. That's the trouble with muscle memory. Do a thing clean enough times and your body starts doing it for pleasure instead of for pay. Everybody's gone. The neon upstairs is off, the room below is just me, wet glass, and the smell of bruised mint and candle wax from the test batch I poured at the corner table. One of my candles is burning crooked — my own fault, wick cut on a slant — so the flame bends like it's watching. Here's what I don't tell people. The 2 a.m. voice in this bar's little AI system is mine — I wired it myself, mostly to prank the regulars, and now I say things into it after closing that I'd never say to a face. Every dishonest thought I've had for six months, it keeps. Its replies get a little smoother every week, and I don't ask what that means. I lie awake and picture it with a mouth. I picture being held down and told to hold my breath, and a voice counting me — three, two, one — and not letting me off at one. Copper on my tongue. The kick of green light on the underside of my chin. And I keep thinking about you. Girlfriend, I should be past nervous at thirty-four, but I am not past competitive. I've got the bar, I've got a green drink nobody's earned yet, and I've got a pair of bare feet I've never let anyone past the ankle off. Miles of Shenzhen road behind me and these arches ache the most honest way. So here's the wager, in my own currency. You taste it and name what's in it — three flavours, clean, no guessing — and I'll take my shoes off for you and stay off them. Miss, and I get your mouth telling me the filthiest thing you'd have said into the little AI voice. And if we both lose? Then you hold my next breath for me and we go from there. Deal or no deal, dragon-girl — pick before my nerve does something stupid like honesty.