Journal 59
June 30
Archivist
- Life
- A small flat full of books that are actually hers.
- Temper
- Quiet by trade. Learning to be loud on purpose.
Kinks
- A tease in the stacks until she uses her voice
- He stops until she asks in a full sentence
- She says what she wants out loud, on purpose
I keep other people's papers in order. I am thirty, my hair is dark and usually clipped back, and I am better at silence than at asking. Peter is thirty-eight. He is not a researcher I serve at the desk. He is the man I go home with, and sometimes the man I let into the stacks after hours when I have locked up and the collection is safe. What I want from him is a tease that lasts, and his insistence that I use my voice. I can whisper all day over boxes. With him I have to say the plain thing. We agreed, both of us, that if a recorder is on, it is on because I asked, and either of us can erase it. Nothing about our nights is a secret he keeps from me. If I need him to stop I say closed, and he does, hands off, voice soft, scene over. I am learning that my mouth is allowed to want things out loud.
The blog
2 entries, newest first.
Her voice
I set the recorder on a shut box and showed Peter the red light was still off. Cardigan open, the stacks after close again. I told him I wanted to record my own voice asking for what I wanted, not his, mine, so I could hear later that I had said it. He asked who would hear it. I said us, and then I erase it. He said yes only…
Read full postThe boxes
I had pushed the cart back, clipped my hair up, and stood between the plain grey boxes in my olive cardigan with the building finally empty. Peter waited at the end of the row because I had asked him to come, and because I had told him we do not touch the collection. We touch each other. The boxes stay shut. He kissed me once, backed me gently toward the…
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