Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 11 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
Playlist Track: Clairo — “Sexy to Someone”
The conversation she pinned is still at the top when she returns to it.
They ask for a photograph made only for them. They leave enough room for her to refuse.
She likes how easy they make it to say no. She also notices that she is already deciding where to put the phone.
Something in the request assumes she is confident enough to enjoy being asked. She reads it again until she starts to believe that about herself.
She asks what kind. The question feels like agreeing to nothing.
The answer leaves most of it to her. Soft light, a bare shoulder, maybe her back turned toward a mirror. Nothing explicit. Something made for them, not taken from anywhere they could already see it.
She had thought about sending them something before they asked.
She is almost sure.
She props the phone against a glass and adjusts the light. The room looks messier through the camera than it did from inside it, so she pushes a shirt out of view with her foot.
Then she turns off the moving-photo setting. She does not want it to save the moment before she is ready.
The picture shows the side of her face, one bare shoulder, and enough of her back to feel different from anything on her profile. She puts the phone down, then picks it up to look again.
She likes this one. She wants them to forget what they were doing before they opened it.
When she adds it to the message, a crop box appears.
She pulls the edges inward until the mirror and most of her shoulder are gone. What remains could almost have come from her profile.
She knows she made it for them.
She sends the cropped version.
While their compliments arrive, she moves the original into Hidden instead of deleting it.
Then she opens the folder and looks at what she kept out of the chat.