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Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 17 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan

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Playlist Track: Magdalena Bay — “Killshot”

The person behind the long profile likes her answer.

He wants to know whether she would like to try following his instructions.

She says maybe.

He treats maybe like the beginning of yes. She does not correct him because she likes the direction he takes it.

They begin with hypotheticals.

If she trusted him. If he gave her rules. If she wanted somebody checking whether she had done what she said she would do.

Then if becomes when without either of them mentioning it.

They discuss what she would call him, what he would expect, and what would happen when she went quiet. He likes being needed. She likes the idea of somebody noticing a need before she has to explain it.

He tells her he would not let her disappear.

She answers, “i wouldn’t want to.”

They have never spoken away from the site. She does not know how he sounds when he is irritated or bored.

They have already discussed exclusivity.

In Notes, beneath I want this to count, she writes, “I think I could belong to you.”

The sentence looks too serious written out like that.

In the chat, she sends, “that sounds nice.”

She tells herself moving carefully means keeping the more serious sentence off the screen he can see.

Then she switches to her messages and unpins the ordinary conversation. Her correction is still waiting in its message field, unsent.

Back on the site, she pins this one instead.

A notification from the conversation she just unpinned crosses the screen. She swipes it away without reading the whole preview.

On the site, his answer appears.

“It will be.”

She saves the message.

She has not heard his voice yet.