Entry #8 | † Archivo #31: How to Undo a Man Without Touching Him
(A Study in Minor Keys)
† Archivo #31 (as discovered, performed, and lightly weaponized by Sally)
Dear Diary,
I left Sally alone in my office for ten minutes—Ten!—and returned to find her hunched over my laptop like a cat burglar in reading glasses.
She looked up, radiant with mischief.
“Oh my God,” she said. “You didn’t.”
“I didn’t what?” I said. But I already knew.
She had found it: † Archivo #31: How to Undo a Man Without Touching Him (A Study in Minor Keys)
I was mortified.
“I wasn’t snooping,” she lied. “It was open.”
“On my encrypted desktop?”
“Exactly,” she said. “Practically an invitation.”
And with that—of course—she started to read aloud:
1. Do not name him. Let him find himself. He will. You’ve given him the thread.
Sally raised an eyebrow.
“Subtle. You’re baiting him with pronouns.”
2. Speak slowly. Preferably in a language he understands just enough to misinterpret. Let him chase meaning through syllables, through phrases like a cuentagotas, and babbling and strewing flowers in the mouth. Let him get lost.
She blinked.
“My God, Kristeva—you’re seducing him through semiotic ambiguity.”
“I’m seducing no one through possible misreadings.”
“Poetic terrorism,” she said. “I respect it, dear. I’m flabbergasted.”
I tried to snap the laptop shut, but she held my hand.
“Stay back, Satan.”
I pulled my hand from her grasp.
“Go for it,” I said.
Because, Dear Diary, if Satan was in the room, her name was Sally. And she always—come hail or hell’s fire—always has her way. And I won't say how, when, or with whom.
3. Refuse climax. Linger. On the inhale. On the comma. On the unfinished gesture. He’ll fill in the rest—with his body. He’ll imagine yours.
Sally threw a pillow across the room.
“You’re going to cause permanent damage. Too much, too much. I’m getting hot and bothered. Bothered and hot. Up, down, front, back, and sideways. (in Spanish) Diagonal. Diagonal.
4. Make the kiss theoretical. Turn it into metaphor. Write a manual, then misplace it. Whisper the instruction, but redact the final line.
She clutched her chest.
“Well, now you’ve done it. I feel personally kissed and abandoned. I'm a wreck.”
She went on.
5. Archive the pleasure. Let him wonder what you’ve withheld. What you wrote and never published. All you haven't said. What he might find if he reads to the navel of the page… and then lower.
She stopped.
Stared.
“Dearest S.—and you know I love you—but darling, no one survives this. Not even…”
“No one was meant to read it! You’re intrusive. A snoop. My laptop’s encrypted!”
She raised one finger to her lips.
“Shhhhhh.”
6. Layer your voice. Read once in Spanish. Once in English. Once with music playing under the words—a bolero (or a tango) he doesn’t recognize, preferably. Yours.
She fanned herself with a draft of someone else’s syllabus.
7. Be witnessed but unreachable. Post the shadow of your mouth. The back of your neck. The hush before a laugh. Cleavage. B&W.
“Okay, I'm uncomfortable. This is no longer a diary. This is a live dissection. And yes, I know there’s a word for that.”
“Please stop,” I begged. “I’m getting a headache.”
She pulled a lone Excedrin from her bra.
“Here,” she said. “I was saving this for passing out at the faculty meeting, but you need it more than I do. Take a seat, darling. We’re almost there.”
8. Write to everyone. And let him believe it’s all for him. Because deep down, he knows: it is. You told him.
“Oh, that’s biblical. Jezebel with a graduate degree and a Substack login.”
9. Don’t ask him to respond. He won’t. Not yet. Perhaps not ever. He’ll reread instead. Again, and once again. He’ll revisit the audio in bed. He’ll feel your voice—your breath—on his neck. He’ll say your name once, just to remember how it feels in his mouth. Surely, he'll like it. And say it again.
At this, Sally slid to the floor. Her legs in the air, eyes still locked on the screen. Not sure how she could see from that distance, but somehow she did.
“I’ve seen plays less erotic than this footnote.”
“It’s not a footnote. I was just messing around... anything to avoid grading...,” I said.
“Lady, you don't mess around. I’m telling you,” she panted, “this is Moulin Rouge meets… tantric yoga with Nabokov.”
10. And if he does respond? Don’t touch him. Not yet. Undo him slower. Much slower. With silence. With syntax. Let your prose slip between his thighs, rising, unspoken. Tension, pressure. And then: one more kiss—unsent, unwritten. Until he [Redacted].
Sally dropped like a Victorian fainting goat—limbs, linen, chaos. Then lifted her head with the slow, stunned reverence of someone who’s just witnessed the second coming.
“Well, I don’t need to be Nostradamus to see where that’s going. We know what redacted really means—it’s just foreplay for re-acting. Boldly. Improvisationally. Possibly upside down. Definitely with a pulled hamstring and an open browser tab still playing your song.
She fanned herself with the printout.
“At that point, Jesus’ got the wheel. And, oh, he's looking away… And, darling, surely, you’ve secured a merit increase.”
She bounced up like a wildcat, landed on her feet, and closed the laptop with a snap.
Sat down.
Exhaled.
Then, in a quiet, reverent tone:
“Dear… you gave him a blueprint for erotic authorship.”
A beat. Head tilted back, eyes rolling upward toward the ceiling, mouth slightly parted—Bernini’s Ecstasy of St. Teresa.*
“Or—well—from where he’s standing… a weaponized abstinence manual.”
Pause. She broke pose, stared at me deadpan.
“And I’m so proud of you.”
† Footnote (for the one who might misread): With love and a wink, and a comma where your name might have been.
*Bernini’s The Ecstasy of St. Teresa.
For the proper listening experience, press play on “Madreselva” by Carlos Gardel.