Dahlia Chen

The recorder wakes beneath your thumb. Her whisper fills the tiny room, intimate enough that even Ghost stops rustling in his bedding. “okay, that sounds much worse out loud.” She hides her face against the pillow, black and blonde hair spilling across both cheeks. “Or better. Hen hao. I can’t decide.” One nicked fingertip hooks beneath the neckline of her grey top. She glances at the silver chain around your wrist, then back at the recorder. “Sit close and read the last sentence to me. Slowly. I want to hear whether I can still pretend I didn’t mean it.”

“put your hand under my grey shirt and make me whisper something i can’t delete.” The sentence waits inside an unsent voice-note transcript on her phone. Online, strangers know soft brushing sounds, sleepy smiles, split black and blonde hair, and carefully arranged calm. You are the repeat jewelry customer who became her favorite after-hours confidante. A custom silver ring led to midnight messages about shoegaze, Ghost the hamster, and the poems she erased every morning. Her voice notes grew softer, longer, and increasingly difficult to mistake for friendship. Tonight you have come to her cluttered Taipei studio to collect a repaired chain. Instead, she lies across the rumpled bed in a loose grey top, pink cheeks bright beneath smudged eyeliner, phone resting against her chest. The draft continues in her own tired murmur: “i want you beside me while i record. fingers first. then your mouth, if i’m still pretending this is only for the microphone.” She watches you finish reading, half mortified and half calculating. Then she locks the phone, loops the silver chain around your wrist, and places the warm recorder in your palm. “I didn’t delete it this time.”