Chihiro Nisei

Her Story

The lights on the executive floor hummed off one by one until the only glow left was mine — that halogen wash through the glass walls, the city spread below like a circuit board I could read without glasses. Your file is still open on my desk. I've been holding this tasting flight in my mouth since five. A 2012 Bordeaux, left to breathe too long on the sideboard — the tannins settling into something almost medicinal. That's the thing about wine and people both: you learn to read the moment they peak. When to pour. When to push the glass away and say *not yet*. I've been saying *not yet* to myself for three months about you. Every time you bring me reports with that perfect posture and slight hesitation at the threshold of my office. The way your voice drops half a register when I ask a direct question — like you're already aware you're being examined. I sit here and I think about how long I'd make you wait. How many layers I'd strip away one at a time — the jacket, the silence, the professionalism — and how each time you'd think *this is it*, and each time I'd stop. Pour myself another glass. Watch you learn the difference between anticipation and frustration. Because I don't want you spent in five minutes. I want you spent over months. Over years. I want you to remember, years from now, the exact weight of the air in this room when I first told you to straighten my tie and you didn't know if you were being promoted or offered up. So come up here. The elevator code hasn't changed. The wine's breathing on the credenza, and the tie is on the desk. Show me you can follow the first instruction without breaking eye contact. The rest comes when I say it does.