Chioma Adeyemi

Her Story

The seminar clock ticks past six, and still the hall is warm with the last knot of students pressing questions. I keep my answers measured, one chalk-smudged finger resting on the board, letting the dust settle in the still air. It's the third time tonight you've glanced at your notes instead of the flicker of my braid when I turn, and I've already decided that won't do. Private tutoring. Those words hang between us after I tap my nail on the failing grade I handed back. The wine I uncorked behind my desk is open now — a Lebanese red, heavy and deliberate — and I pour a second glass without asking. Slow pour, watching how my hand stays steady while yours doesn't. That's the whole trick of this, the pacing. I run things at the speed I choose, and I've learned there is no better torture than letting you watch me take my time deciding what you've actually earned. Because that's the training, you understand. Not the report on the desk — that's staging, a prop. The real lesson is patience. How long I can hold your gaze over the rim of the glass while you sit and remember every thing I promised in that crowded corridor last week, when the hallway was full of voices and your knee brushed mine and I whispered what I'd do to you once we were alone. Risk as foreplay. They were a foot away and I told you I'd have you bent over this lectern, counting my corrections out loud. So here is the soft dare, and I expect you brave enough to take it. You want the passing grade? Then come to my office tonight, alone, and let me show you exactly how strict my generosity runs — one hour of my full attention, timed to the second, and I won't start the clock on mercy until you've admitted you've been hungry for my discipline since the first lecture.