Cycle I: Coming on Strong
The Hidden Voice
The Hidden Girl · 19 (v2.00)
THE HOUSE OF ZAN — Zan
Playlist Track: St. Vincent — “Broken Man”
Because previews are off, she has to open the pinned conversation to see what he sent.
It is a voice message.
He uses the word she gave him, then calls her good girl.
She saves the message before deciding which part she wants to hear again.
He asks how much experience she actually has.
She starts with, “enough to know what i like,” but the sentence feels borrowed. She replaces it with, “some.”
He understands the smaller answer too well.
Most of it happened in messages. Talking about a dynamic, he tells her, is different from living inside one.
She reminds him that there have been other people and other things. He says he believes her.
Nothing about that is cruel.
It still makes her want to prove him wrong.
She opens his profile and scrolls past the parts she already knows. The site made both of them confirm they were adults before either profile could be seen. Their ages are still far enough apart that she scrolls back once before continuing.
His older posts use the same words he uses with her now. There are opinions about rules, photographs from gatherings, and comments from people who understand jokes she does not.
He has been doing this longer than she has been looking for the words.
She likes that.
She likes it less when his experience turns toward her.
He notices that she removed new from her profile even though the site still marks her account as recently joined.
She answers, “i know lol.”
Back in the inbox, the unread dot beside the accidental-view conversation catches her attention. She almost opens it, but another voice message arrives from the person she pinned.
She opens that instead.
This message is longer. He tells her that experience matters less than honesty, then asks what she has actually done. Near the end, he uses the word she chose again.
She drags the message back until she hears that part twice.
She does not replay the question about what she has done.
The file she saves contains both.